Headshots for an organization like the Center for Reproductive Rights carry a weight that standard corporate portraits do not. The people I was photographing are advocates, attorneys, and leaders working on some of the most consequential legal issues of our time. Their portraits need to reflect that significance without sacrificing approachability. The brief from the Center was precise and well-considered: they wanted headshots that felt real and human, that communicated both authority and accessibility. Not the stiff, over-lit studio portraits that make people look like they are enduring a process rather than participating in one. Something more honest than that.
The Decision to Shoot On Location
The choice to shoot on location rather than in a studio was central to everything else about this project. Studio headshots, even excellent ones, carry an implicit formality that can work against the kind of approachability the Center was after. When you put someone in front of a seamless backdrop in a controlled studio environment, there is a performance that happens. People tend to stiffen, to perform a version of professional that reads in the final image as slightly removed.
Shooting on location grounds people. It puts them in an environment they recognize, surrounded by context that connects to their actual work and their actual lives. For the Center's team, people deeply committed to real-world impact, that environmental authenticity was exactly right. The locations we chose gave the images a sense of place and purpose that a studio simply could not have provided.
Lighting On Location for Portrait Photography
On-location portrait photography involves a particular lighting challenge. You are working with environmental light that you do not fully control, and the goal is to shape that light in ways that feel natural rather than imposed. For these portraits, I used a lighting approach designed to complement and enhance the existing environment rather than override it, adding definition, managing shadows, and ensuring that every subject was shown at their best without any image feeling artificially lit.
The result is portraits that look like a great photographer happened to be in the right place at the right time. The kind of apparent effortlessness that actually requires considerable technical precision to achieve. As a headshot and portrait photographer based in New York, I have developed a strong preference for this approach: lighting that serves the subject and the environment rather than announcing itself.
Directing Subjects for Authentic Expression
The most technically perfect headshot is worthless if the subject looks uncomfortable. Getting real, authentic expression from people who are not professional models, especially in a professional context where they are very aware of the camera, is the core skill of portrait photography, and it is one that develops over years of practice.
For the Center's team, I focused on conversation rather than direction. Talking with each person about their work, asking questions that genuinely interested me, and letting the camera catch the expressions that emerged naturally from those exchanges. The most powerful images in the series are the ones where the subject forgot, for a moment, that they were being photographed. That forgetting shows in the realness of what the camera captured.
Portrait Photography for Nonprofits and Advocacy Organizations
Nonprofits and advocacy organizations have specific portrait needs that are distinct from standard corporate headshots. The people being photographed often need to be seen as both authoritative and relatable, advocates who can command a room and also connect with the public they serve. That balance is a portrait photography challenge I find genuinely compelling.
If you are a nonprofit, advocacy organization, or mission-driven institution in New York looking for a portrait and headshot photographer who understands how to make your team look powerful, real, and human, I would love to talk about what your portrait program could look like.
Read more
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/ Sun Your Buns: What a Park Picnic Club Taught Me About Community
/ Recreating the Home Office: On-Location Product Photography for Logitech in Manhattan
/ Book Launch Photography and Corporate Headshots for Penguin Random House
/ How a TikTok Search Led to a Full Brand Shoot with Flewd Stresscare
/ Lifestyle Photography for Pacific Foods at People Inc.'s World Trade Center Office
/ On Location with Rifle Paper Co.: Photographing Travel Products in Manhattan
/ Multi-Week Shoots for Thymes and Capri Blue: Candles, Models, and Full Production
/ On Living in New York and Meeting the Most Interesting People
/ On Location with Hasbro: Photographing Play-Doh and Toys with Kids and a Video Team
/ Inside a L'Oreal Matrix Hair Shoot: Afters, Affidavits, and What It Takes
/ Shooting Dairy Queen's Social Campaign at K2 Studios: Mint Chip, Snowdrift, and Valentine's Day
/ The Outspoken Artist Podcast: What We Actually Talked About
/ Building Kaplan's Brand Asset Library: Employee Photography in Brooklyn and Fort Lauderdale
/ How TikTok Changed the Way Brands Find Photographers
/ On Location with Bissell: Lifestyle, Video, and UGC Photography for Pet Cleaning Products
/ Sparkling and Set-Styled: Social Content and GIF Photography for Waterloo Sparkling Water
/ What It Actually Takes to Run a Full Production Brand Shoot
/ On-Location Headshots for the Center for Reproductive Rights: Powerful, Real, and Human
/ On Being a Commercial Artist Who Keeps Thinking About Moving to the Woods
/ What Becoming President of ASMP New York Actually Means
/ Behind the Lens: Photographing Assouline's Archive Library in Manhattan
/ Long-Term Brand Photography for Caribou Coffee: Lifestyle, Social, and In-Store Campaigns
/ Speaking at Index Space: Creative Showcase V5
External
Sigma / Travel the Alps with SIGMA’s Lightweight 18-50mm & 10-18mm Zoom Lenses
Sigma / Behind the Scenes on a Fashion Shoot with the Sigma BF
Sigma / Why I Choose SIGMA Zoom Lenses for Studio Photography
Sigma / A Fresh Look at Berlin Through the Sigma 12mm F1.4 DC Contemporary Lens