author portrait
Portrait of author Mark John Isola, Boston, MA. Arlington, MA.
Mark John Isola, a writer and English professor hailing from both Boston and Provincetown, Massachusetts, contacted me recently to photograph him as he had recently finished working on his first story collection. Fascinating work, his new book explores the social within the sexual to consider the reflective, romantic, and randy aspects of human experience.
Read MoreA Netherlands-based publication, Filosofie, entirely dedicated to philosophers, recently contacted me to photograph Adam Sandel, PhD, a Harvard lecturer in social studies and rising star in the philosophy world. The art director of Filosofie was looking for portraits for an interview-based article for their November edition of the magazine, and gave me a lot of creative freedom to create a several images that highlighted this young professor whose new book was shortly to be released in Europe.
Sandel, son of noted philosopher Michael Sandel, also of Harvard, was a joy to photograph. Filosfie's interviewer was running a bit late, so I photographed a bit of the interview while I waited.
Adam Sandel interview with Filosofie Magazine. Cambridge, MA.
Once the interview was complete, I shot Adam both indoors and outdoors on campus, using several different lighting techniques, first in the ambient light, and then shooting to create a virtual night in order to separate Adam from the background.
Adam was infinitely patient as I tinkered around with several lighting set-ups (my assistant's car sadly broke down in one of Boston's innumerable tunnels, so I was flying solo). Adam beautifully coped with me dragging him to different setups, turning and twisting him around, with a lovely personable sense of humor and a quiet thoughtfulness as he answered my questions and quickly adapted to each physical and lighting environment. A lovely afternoon all around, and I even finished on time for him to make a family dinner!
Last June, Jennifer Haigh and I took a walk through one of Massachusetts' most beautiful parks together, World's End, in Hingham. We followed a wooded path through drumlins, low, rolling hills formed by glaciers, until we reached where the Atlantic Ocean reflected the sky. Jennifer walks these paths in order to think and compose, and I thought that it would be an appropriate place to photograph where she puts thoughts together to create her character-driven novels and short stories.
Originally, these images were going to be part of my Boston writers and artists series, but I was very pleased when Jennifer contacted me this past fall to ask if she could use one of the images from the shoot for her upcoming book of short stories set in and around the fictionalized coal-mining town of Bakerton, Pennsylvania, Her new book, News from Heaven: The Bakerton Stories, will be published by HarperCollins Publishers on January 29, 2013.
Jennifer is as she is photographed; direct, thoughtful, intelligent. She has a wry and down-to-earth sense of humor that came through our chat, and often surprised me through the course of our conversation. I remember asking her what she wanted to grow up to be when she was a kid, expecting that her answer might have to do with writing or the arts, and she paused thoughtfully, and replied, "I remember, at age five, wanting to be a gas station attendant." She had no memory of why, and we both chuckled. Obviously, things developed in a scholarly direction for her as she got older, as she ended getting her MFA at the University of Iowa in writing, and as an adult, she said she couldn't imagine doing anything but write.
I loved working with Jennifer because she was confident both of herself and how she enjoyed best being photographed, and also because of her trust in me. The walk was wonderful, and I was delighted to work with Jennifer, photographing her on a beautiful day at the World's End. If you'd like to learn more about Jennifer's work, please visit her beautiful website at http://www.jenniferhaigh.com.
