The Editorial Portrait

Financial consultant John White for Financial Planning Magazine.

 

In my post about the definitive portrait I listed several other kinds of portraits a photographer may be called upon to do -- the casual portrait, the personal or studio portrait, the business portrait, the corporate portrait, and the editorial portrait.

The editorial portrait, which, as the name implies is usually assigned by a magazine or newspaper, is intended to give insight into who the person is and what he or she does.

One of my favorite assignments of this type was a portrait of financial consultant John White, who had written an article for Financial Planning Magazine. Distinguished graphic designer and long-time friend Michael Largent, the design editor of the magazine at the time, sent me to West Palm Beach, where the obviously successful Mr. White had a very nice home on a golf course. 

Michael's concept was to photograph Mr. White against a background of blue sky with fluffy white clouds. Not trusting Mother Nature to provide the appropriate setting, he had a large canvas background painted in New York and shipped to me in Florida. 

His skepticism was justified, because the sky was overcast on the day I was scheduled to make the portrait. I set up the painted background in White's garage, lighted the subject and background with my portable studio flash kit, and went to work with my Hasselblad medium format camera and Fujichrome RDP100 film.

However, after shooting a few rolls of film, it was obvious to me that things weren't working at all. 

Having read White's article as a basic part of preparation for this assignment, I felt his advice to the financial world could be summed up metaphorically as "The skies appear to be clearing but don't put your umbrellas away quite yet." 

With that sixth sense that sometimes comes to the aid of photographers (serendipity?), I had put my red golf umbrella in the car that morning, although there was no rain in the forecast. I retrieved the umbrella from the car and asked Mr. White if we could take a short walk on the golf course. Finding a good spot by a lake, I gave him the open umbrella and made the photograph with a 50mm wide angle lens. 

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone