Portraits Meant to Inspire Photographers - w/Lighting Notes

Swedish model was stunning. I shot this for a designer in London. There's a hard light camera right. There's also a bit of reflector fill. I wanted to just graze the eye camera left. Tricky.

Another one from that series. We did an editorial for the designer. I think this was a softbox backed off so there was enough light to hit the subject in the background.

Sometimes I look for the unusual natural light. The sun was going down and there was something blocking the light. I moved the model into the light, just lighting up a portion of her face.

Same model as above but shot with a beauty dish a little earlier. It was a hard light from the sun and dish. Works for this rock and roll kind of look. I think there's also a rim light from behind camera left. I like to over-expose the rim light.

A bit of a weird image because the subjects face isn't illuminated. This girl had just been through a bad break up and asked me to take images of her. I intentionally grabbed one for myself to show that she was in a new chapter in life but didn't know which direction to go. Faceless. You have this sort of power as a photographer.

Miss Singapore. I was shooting for a designer. Nothing special other than she was cool as fuck.

A selfie I did a few years back. Notice the flagged lighting. I used flags to block off the main light. The fill is a ringflash which creates a strange look. You can see the tiny remote in my hand. I also wanted a strange look because times were tough during this shot, my girlfriend dumped me.

Experimental shots. I had a beauty dish. The image on the left I shot through a scrim; some of the light was diffused and the other half was raw/hard light. This was a mistake that I really liked. Sometimes when you screw up you get something awesome. The right image, I just liked the beauty dish in the reflection of the glasses. Reminded me of an alien.

This a model in LA. I believe this was shot with a softbox. I love the softbox when it's directly overhead. The trick is to make sure you have enough angle on the box to fill in the eyes.

Pablo Escobar's nephew, Paolo Escobar. Cool dude! I used a 28" softbox and the sun for a rim and flare. My first iconic shot...people from around the world saw this image. It was also used in the Westcott catalog.

Knut Bell. He's a country musician, but is also into KungFu. So I had him put on his cowboy hat and KungFu gear.

Another natural light shot. You never know when you're going to get a mistake and get something you find beautiful. Also, you wait for the right moment and then click, notice the expression.

Another iconic image for me. This image was shot for BlackRapid. They got a lot of mileage out of this shot, the subject was a homeless guy named Mark. He just struck a weird pose and I snapped it. Nailed it.

Another softbox image. But it's the subject matter and fire that make this work. It was taken in Santa Rosa, Colombia.