Image Focus

I’m always looking for something representative and honest from a portrait sitting, which needs a calm and restful atmosphere to enable my subject to feel confident enough to give me that moment. I feel the ability to create that trust, so that the portrait exchange can occur truthfully, is the real skill of the portrait photographer. With this image, you can sense the stillness where all performance and complication has been removed.

This portrait came to life when I contacted the actor, Amaka Okafor, and asked if she would come into my new daylight studio – @28Sunbury. Having my own shoot space has really helped me to approach portraiture in a fresh way and I’ve contacted a range of talent with no agenda or briefing, other than for the pure love of the process. I’m shooting with individuals I’m interested in, and it has been heartwarming and empowering to connect with new faces and create beautiful work I believe in.

For years my workflow has been all about setting up flash and crafting it into a mood. It now seems in reverse, as I’ve really loved the simplicity of utilising and shaping daylight – it’s always so flattering and, when in combination with my Sony Alpha 7R V and FE 50mm f/1.2 GM, it gives me complete confidence that I’m capturing the highest quality that can be achieved.

Using a 50mm focal length lens of this quality feels so comfortable and familiar – there’s a reason it’s known as the standard lens and deserves to be a mainstay in every camera bag. Firstly, it enables real intimacy between you and your subject as you can fill your frame with as much detail as you wish, or you can pull back to reveal space and context around your subject. Here, I really got in close and felt the connection with Amaka. Direction to create shape and movement was done in whispers, which is much preferred.

Something I love about this portrait is the incredible quality that you get from this particular camera and lens combination. You can see every detail in her skin, and the way the depth of field falls off on her hair is stunning. It makes her face the hero of the image; it’s beautiful and spectacular and there to be celebrated. The aperture choice was an aesthetic one, drawing focus to the subject and not the photograph itself nor its technique.

I always shoot in colour and in raw, but it’s been fascinating to see that so much of what I’ve shot in my daylight studio has been converted to black and white. I can’t tell you why other than it has been driven by simplicity and the need to strip away all the distractions because I aim for powerful, honest portraits.

We as photographers decide. We decide how we want our pictures to look and how impactful we want them to be. With this portrait, it was indisputable that it would always be black and white based on the essential elements of Amaka’s face, her hair, her calmness and then the light, the lens and the sensor. It all adds up to create a sensitive but dramatic black and white portrait.

Make up by Shanice Croasdale

Photographed @28Sunbury