Editorialized portrait setting with Frank Ventry, 2015.

I met Frank while working on an unrelated video assignment. He noticed my bag full of camera equipment and asked me if I knew the other photographers he followed (most of which, I did). We chatted for a bit and he said he has photos done each fall. I gave him my business card, but I didn't expect him to get back to me so quickly.

After some brainstorming, we decided that he wanted photos that were "edgy."

"I've had fall pictures done before that were all cute out in the leaves and stuff," Frank said to me, "but I don't want these pictures to be like that."

"Perfect," I said in reply. "Because I don't want these pictures to be like that either."

The resulting session is the result of me treating our hours like a workshop. I experimented with concepts, lighting and techniques that cooked on my mental back-burner over the past couple of months while I had been shooting weddings, head shots and cutesy portraits -- my typical "bread and butter." I wanted to shoot something heavier; something darker.

And I think that's exactly what we got.