So many photographers strive to shoot with broad nice pretty flattering light, and I get that. It’s commercial. It’s accessible. It looks nice. However, straddling the line between art and commerce is sort of my jam. I like drama. Introspection. I always seem to gravitate towards more subtle storytelling, heightened ambiguity, and technical drama, rather than obvious contrived posing, and accessibility. I want to see the in-between moments…where someone is vulnerable or uncomfortable, etc…or super authentic as well. I look for a moment where the subject’s humanity is more accessible rather than an conventional aesthetic. It’s probably not some people’s cup of tea, but nonetheless I persist. lol

This portrait I shot of Jordan with a projector and a snooted gelled strobe camera left. I had a specific inspiration that hit me in the midst of a last minute location change and I was scrambling to figure out what we could do, since our location and conditions went to shite. In any case, I always admired a certain photographer (that will remain nameless) and he shot these beautiful on location portraits in Haiti after the earthquake. No strobes, only available light and it happened to be these sodium vapor streetlights. Typically they are the ugly yellow colored ones— not very appealing. However I just remember how beautiful the yellow cast looked on black skin. For some reason it seemed noble and majestic. So it sort of hit me to run with that idea. We set up a scooted gelled strobe camera left, flagged off the background. Background was lit with ambient light, and then i threw this great pattern I had on my HD projector onto him. For this particular image, i threw white V Flat behind him knowing the projector would spill a little and maybe break up the color a bit, as it would reflect white. Anyway, this is the result! Enjoy!