This is not Walgreen’s

When I went down to photograph the people of iHealth.com I had no idea what to expect. They were in an office park in Palo Alto and there wasn’t much to work with. But there was light. They had a conference room with some pretty decent light. So I brought in a slab of wood flooring from an old farmhouse, propped it up on some boxes, and voila, instant vintage look.

This gave the photos a warm tone and a little bit of texture and really helped the faces to pop. I mean, look at this woman’s skin. This could be a painting. I’m very happy with how these portraits turned out, and I was nervous at the onset because I hadn’t really done this before. But I had an intuitive inkling it just might work. And it did.

One thing I like about doing portrait work is that every situation is different. There’s no cookie-cutter process with artificial lighting and seamless backdrops for me. I couldn’t do it that way. I mean I could, but it would just suck the creativity out of it and render the results bland. I’m not in this to take passport photos. You can get that done at Walgreens. No offense meant to the scores of photographers who work that way. There are many great photographers who use lights and backdrops. And you can get great results that way. But I fell in love with natural light, and the way that looks on a person’s skin.

So, I’m a natural light photographer. And I think the results speak for themselves. I’m not the right photographer for everyone, but if you feel something from my photographs, if they speak to you, wordlessly, then I am doing something right. This is the very crux of my work. Sunlight. This is how we’re meant to be seen, whatever meant means. This is how we see each other. I’m only interested in photographing people the way they see each other.