A portrait as considered as your work.
I work out of Lafayette and Urbana-Champaign — Purdue and U of I. Your faculty page, your research profile, your conference bio — the portrait on all of those probably looks like you were ambushed with a camera in a corridor. We can do better than that.
Was your profile photo taken at a conference, grabbed by a colleague with a phone, or produced by the department's annual photo day with a borrowed backdrop and a photographer who had twelve minutes per person? It doesn't look like you — it looks like someone who was briefly photographed.
That matters more than it used to. Your image appears on your faculty page, your Google Scholar profile, your publisher's website, your speaker bio, your ResearchGate. It's often the first thing a prospective student, collaborator, or journalist sees.
I spent eight years at Cornell and a good stretch before that at an agency whose clients were almost entirely Cambridge University departments. I know the culture, the environments, and what these images need to do — on a faculty page, a book jacket, a conference slide, a research profile.
A conversation before the camera comes out.
We start by talking. What's this image for — a faculty page, a book jacket, a grant submission, a conference keynote? What do you want it to say? What would you like it to not look like?
Location is part of the image. Some people want their office — books, natural light, a sense of the actual environment where the thinking happens. Some want somewhere more neutral. Some want outside. We figure it out together, and I'll make suggestions if you'd like them.
The session itself is unhurried. I don't direct you into poses. We talk, we move around, and I photograph as things happen. The portraits that come out of that approach tend to look more like you than anything produced by stand here, chin up, good, hold that.
Anyone in the university world who needs a better image.
Faculty at any stage — assistant, associate, full, emeritus. Postdocs and researchers preparing for a job search or a grant cycle. Graduate students finishing a dissertation or heading to the market for the first time. Visiting scholars. Researchers without academic affiliation who need a credible professional portrait for their work.
Also: academics writing books. Author photos for university presses are often an afterthought — a crop from a conference photo, or a three-year-old image that no longer looks quite right. If you're at the point where someone is asking for an author photo, it's worth doing it properly.
And keynote speakers and conference presenters — the bio photo that gets projected onto a screen in front of three hundred people deserves better than what's currently on your institutional page.
Standard sessions. Nothing academic-specific about the price.
The same two sessions work here as for any portrait work. Editing and delivery always included. Travel within 30 miles of Lafayette, Indiana or Urbana-Champaign, Illinois is included — Indianapolis adds $100, Chicago adds $200.
Essential Session
- 1 hour, 1 location
- 5 edited portraits
- Private online gallery delivery
- Editing included
Exploration Session
- 3 hours, 1 location
- 20 edited portraits
- Private online gallery delivery
- Editing included
Tell me what the image needs to do.
Where it'll live, what it's for, what you're hoping it looks like. We'll take it from there.