The Best Shoots Are a Conversation

I met her on the subway.

Which, if you know anything about New York City, is not supposed to happen. You stare at your phone or the middle distance or the floor. You do NOT make eye contact. You definitely do not end up booking a portrait session with a stranger you met between stops.

And yet. This is somehow the second time I've done exactly that.

There was something about her (the way she held herself, the way she talked) and I knew. I just knew she'd be extraordinary in front of a camera. I was right.

The best sessions aren't just about what I bring. Yes, I know light. I know posing. I know how a bodysuit and a pair of polka dot stockings can do something almost architectural when the studio conditions are set up just right — the way a silhouette becomes its own kind of language. I've built a whole practice around understanding that. But none of it matters if the person on the other side isn't in it with me.

She was completely in it.

That's the thing people don't always understand about this work. It's a dance. I'm leading, of course — but only because she's willing to follow, and then push back, and then go somewhere neither of us planned. That's where some of the best images live. Not in the poses we simply manufactured. In the moments between them. When that spark of energy lights up her entire being.

We worked through her wardrobe together, the way I do with every client. What reads on camera. What tells the story she actually wants to tell about herself. What makes her feel like her, turned up. She came prepared. She came open. And when we put her on the floor in that bodysuit with the light hitting just right, I knew we were making something I'd keep coming back to.

These images are among my all-time favorites.

They say making eye contact on the subway can be dangerous. I guess I got lucky.