When I was teaching at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops last August I had the fortune of sitting in on a presentation given by Tony O’Brien. During the talk he discussed his photo series, Light in the Desert, wherein he spent a year living with and photographing monks in a monastery. He described how he had waited seven months before he even picked up his camera to take a picture. He wanted to earn the trust of his subjects before attempting to capture their image. It absolutely blew my mind. That level of patience and intentionality is unheard of. No one had directed him to wait that long. No one was watching him to make sure he captured his subjects with honesty and integrity. It was apparent to me that this is the way he lives his life and in turn also carries out his photography work.

All that is to say is that I’ve been working a lot on modeling my life after a slower, more intentional way of living. That said, when my model Farhia arrived at my studio for this shoot we sat and chatted for about 45 minutes before I picked up my camera (it’ll take me a while to work up to seven months). The shoot took place on New Year’s Eve, making it my last shoot of the decade. These last few months have been a time of great self-reflection for me. I’ve gone back through my Google calendar all the way to 2009 in an effort to remember what I was up to ten years ago. I’ve gone through my email archives to remind myself of all the clients I’ve had the privilege of working with. I’ve even revisited (and re-edited) old shoots to see how my work has progressed. To say that me and my work have come a long way would be an incredible understatement. Across the board I am learning to be more present and act/create with more intention.

The shoot started how most of my personal shoots do. I told Farhia to bring a few outfits with her and that once I see what she brought I’d come up with an idea of how to approach lighting, etc. She arrived in a rust-colored dress and long black coat, which I immediately knew I wanted to shoot against a green backdrop. She mentioned that she’d want to add a headwrap to that look so we should shoot it last in an effort to keep her hair in order. So we started with her in a black turtleneck, which I chose to shoot with a hard light and dark shadows. I lit the background yellow and lit her blue because I knew it would look great on her skin, equally inspired by the key art for HBO’s Watchmen as well as Moonlight.

After she changed tops I replaced the background gel with magenta and set up a plant between my light and the model, acting as a cucoloris. I am really happy with the shapes the leaves made on her face. For the next look I changed over the backdrop from white to green. I started with the hard light setup, this time with both red and yellow lights coming through the plant, while an un-gelled light illuminates the green backdrop. Though I loved the shots I got with that setup, I also wanted to capture her look in a simple, elegant manner. I set up a large octabox to the side and snapped a few frames before calling it a wrap. When it came time to color grade the images I couldn’t decide between a color or a black and white treatment, so I did both (the B&W treatment reminds me a bit of Herb Ritts).

I want to thank each of you for your support over these years. Thanks for reading my posts, buying my books, and sending me emails of encouragement. It really helps keep me going. I’m excited to see what this next decade will bring for me, my work, my family, and the world.