Portrait

My studio portraits are carefully built so that a moment less careful can happen.

The face, the hands, the body, a seamless backdrop, maybe a prop, and the light. Oh, how I love the light!

The best pictures end differently from the idea I had at first — a collaboration between photographer and subject.

I don’t want the face worked out beforehand in a mirror. I want the moment the camera is forgotten — eyes closed, laughing, or when the camera is finished. Rarely, but wonderfully, it can be staring straight down the lens.

Recently I've been starting not with an empty frame but with a painting — a portrait that begins with Gérard, Leonardo, Picasso, Rembrandt… and ends elsewhere. The painting gets us into the room. After that, we're on our own.