Process Translated

The challenge shooting editorial portraits on white seamless, for me, is creating some kind of context for the subject. Nigel Poor co-hosts the podcast “Ear Hustle” with inmate Earlonne Woods about life inside San Quentin State Prison. We photographed her at her studio in San Francisco for this week’s New York Times Magazine.

Poor also works on the prison’s photo archive. The lighting in that archive inspired the direction for the lighting of this portrait. Additionally I looked at Weegee’s lighting and old crime scene photographs.

Initially I tried using one just off camera strobe with a magnum reflector. The lighting was a bit harsh and not super flattering. So we added a larger light bank and a reflector to fill and soften some of the shadows, with our primary light coming from a light with a magnum reflector. 

Listen to the podcast here and see the New York Times Magazine piece here.

 

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