Why I Photograph People Who Weren't Planning On It

The sessions I remember most are the ones where nobody had a plan.

No mood board. No reference photos pulled from Pinterest at midnight. Just a person who decided it was time and showed up.

There’s something that happens when someone comes in without an agenda. They’re not performing a version of themselves they prepared in advance. They’re not trying to recreate an image they saw someone else pull off. They’re just, present. And presence is the hardest thing to manufacture and the easiest thing to photograph when it’s actually there.

I’ve learned not to ask people to be themselves. That’s the one direction that never works. Tell someone to be natural and watch them become the least natural version of themselves in real time. What actually works is simpler and slower: get to know them. Ask the right questions. Let the conversation go somewhere unexpected. Create enough comfort in the space that the performance quietly falls away on its own.

That’s the version of a person I’m after. Not the one they rehearsed. The one that shows up when they forget they’re being photographed.

And here’s the thing, they always recognize it. I’ll show someone an image from that moment, the unguarded one, the one where nothing was forced, and they’ll go quiet for a second before they say that’s actually me. Not I look good. Not I like that one. Just, that’s me.

That’s the image worth making.

So if you’ve been putting off a session because you don’t know how to pose, or you’re not sure you’re a “photo person,” or you just don’t know what you’d even do in front of a camera, that’s exactly the kind of person I photograph best.

Come without a plan. I’ll take it from there.

This is a portrait taken of someone who was not planning on it.