Cat Norman's Photography Blog – featuring world photojournalism and documentary portraiture

Holly Evans

As I mentioned in my last post, I got to shoot two friends – Holly and Dee Dee – last Tuesday. One of the best things about photographing two separate people at the same time, is that it keeps your brain churning, looking for the best light for each. My favorite thing about portraiture is that no two faces look the same in the same lighting – so as a photographer I have to tweak and change to suit each face shape and personality. Even when the setting is the same, both people will carry a different presence. For example, in the photo below, Holly perches perilously like a black bird in front of the red door, while Dee Dee took the same pose (see bottom of previous post) and whisked us all away to wartime in Eastern Europe…

Holly is a pianist. She needed some basic headshots for recital pamphlets and such (not pictured)… So after we got those out of the way, she was willing to play along with some ideas that I had, and – I mean this as a complement – but I wouldn’t have guessed that she’d make such a great model. Her look is so edgy and her face and perfect black dress just begged for harsh contrasty light. Here’s are some of the shots –>








All images © 2009 Cat Norman Photography.