Kendall, the rain was coming.

Light is like wine, the latter I know nothing of except I like to drink it and it has innumerable subtleties both of which are also true of light. And having not enough of either is nearly as bad as having too much. When rain clouds are blowing in both, or at least light, I want to understand.

I have an upcoming commission to make some head shots of an actor. She’ll be arriving from Los Angles soon and so while on assignment to photograph Kendall I thought about how to work within the prevailing definitions of standard head shots for professional Hollywood use. I have hit the books on this topic and it seems that portraiture of any kind is often a one-line joke of really long story. This seems to be distilled into dramatic form in professional head shots; everybody has a story, and everyday their tale gets longer. We all agree the face is the best way to ‘read’ another person. And to do so in a single image of any face is a summary of enormous proportion, like saying the Bible is a book about a carpenter.

I’ve come to enjoy the challenge and the brute force of brevity and bare plainness of trying to tell such a story of any man or woman in such simple statement. It may not always read the way it ought, but like my grandfather told me once, “Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.” Even one as short as portrait.

More on this notion can be seen and read here.