The Honest Portrait
Begun in 2017, The Honest Portrait presents a range of people, from models and actors to poets and priests, against a single hand-painted backdrop and illuminated by a solitary light source. The images are captured digitally, but the subjects are only minimally retouched. Instead, the backdrop itself is digitally manipulated through dodging, burning, and bleaching—digital adaptations of techniques first developed in nineteenth-century darkrooms. These characteristics remain constant across the series, lending the images a mood reminiscent of early photographic portraiture. The Honest Portrait does not seek to idealize a bygone era but rather present contemporary yet timeless impressions of the individual sitters.