Your portraits
A portrait is what people look at before they read anything else. On a team page, in a press release, next to a name they do not know yet. It tells them who they are about to deal with, and it sets the impression they arrive with.
Between twenty and forty minutes each, depending on the format you choose. That is all I need.
The black and white studio portrait
Plain background, sculpted light, closer framing. The more graphic of the two studio options, and the one that holds up printed and framed. This is the format the Nobel and Lasker laureates sat for at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
The color studio portrait
Plain background, so the thumbnail stays readable at any size. The standard for a team page, a directory, LinkedIn.
The natural portrait
The same lighting, without the background. A lobby, a corridor, an office, outside. The room is part of the picture.
The portrait in action
Shot during the work itself: at the bench in a laboratory, on the line in a plant. It shows what the person does, not only who they are. The Jackson Laboratory has been commissioning this since 2016.
The team portrait
Everyone on the same mark, same light, same background or same setting. One after another, so the whole set matches.
The group photograph
Everyone in one frame. For an annual report, an anniversary, the launch of a program, the end of a project.
Your facilities and your work
The same subject at any scale: a facade, an entrance, a corridor, a laboratory or a workshop, empty or in full activity. For an annual report, a careers page, a site that has to look like somewhere you would want to work.
At Domaine Gros Frère et Sœur it was the vineyard, the cellar and the estate from the air.
Objects
A photograph of an object sells it, shows it as an example, or illustrates a text or a page. The light is built for each piece before anything is shot.
Send me the piece
Parts, samples, products, prototypes. They come back photographed, on a black or white background, with or without reflection. Up to forty-five pounds.
Or I bring the studio to you
Above that weight, or when the piece cannot leave the building. Furniture, machines, anything too large or too valuable to ship.
Metal, glass, varnish, crystal
A polished surface does not photograph, it reflects the room, so the room gets built first. Machined and polished metal, glass, varnish, crystal faces.
From $150 a piece in a series of ten or more, and from $350 for a piece whose light has to be built for it.
Collectors, see Minerals Photography, my site for photography, video and web design for mineral collections.
Events, performance and sport
None of it can be asked to start again. A dancer in the air, a drummer mid-strike, an award being handed over. None of it plays twice.
Ceremonies and openings
Award ceremonies, inaugurations, official visits, conferences, anniversaries.
Stage events
Dance, theatre, concerts. Shot for Degas at the Paris Opera Ballet School. See the campaign.
Sport events and competitions
Games, practice, the sidelines and the stands.
What you get, and what it costs
Every frame from the session
No cap, nothing held back. You get the photographs from the session.
Retouching included
There is a difference between cosmetic retouching and plastic surgery. Faces keep their lines and their texture, minerals keep their color, and what comes back looks like what was in front of the camera. What does come out is what does not belong: a car parked in front of the building, someone crossing the floor in the wrong uniform, a cable on the ground.
Delivery within fifteen days
Counted from the end of the assignment, usually sooner. Same day when a publication date demands it and you say so before the session.
Files ready to use
Web transfer. 2500 pixels on the long edge in WebP and JPEG, full resolution JPEG for print. Any other format on request.
The images are yours
No time limit, no restriction on where they appear, no licence to renew in three years. The only thing you cannot do is resell them.
Adding someone to the team page later
A team page gets new arrivals. I keep the setup of every session, so a portrait made two years later matches the ones already on the page.
Option to purchase RAW files
The RAW is the original file, and it is not included. You can buy it and own the photograph as though you had taken it yourself: some clients need that for a process or a product that must exist nowhere else, others because they want to reprocess the image later with their own team. Once the RAW files are sold I delete mine. From that day you are the only one holding those photographs, and backing them up is on you.
Rates
On site, from $1,800 for a half day and from $2,900 for a full day.
Objects in the studio, from $150 a piece in a series of ten or more, and from $350 for a piece whose light has to be built for it.
Editing, delivery and travel within fifty miles are included, and beyond fifty miles you get the figure before I set off.
Tell me what has to be photographed, who has to be in it, and when your people are free. I answer within twenty-four hours, ask whatever is missing, and the written quote follows within another twenty-four. The figure in it is fixed before anything is booked.
Portfolio
Full projects
Six of them, told in full: how the work started, what it involved, what came out of it.
Nine years inside a biomedical institute: portraits, research imagery, video, an annual report.
A private mineral collection, specimen by specimen, and the searchable database built around it.
