TODD

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Todd’s wife Jamie is an old friend of mine. She connected me to her husband in addition to Roxy who posed for this series. The location and vibe was an easy decision for his shoot. Todd is a Ju-jitsu instructor at Guardian in the Remington neighborhood of Baltimore. The warehouse vibe was something I wanted to capture.

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I knew the “Stay Scrappy” ink would need to be front and center. I relied on Todd’s knowledge of poses that would fit the martial art and allow the lens to see the words on his arm. The dark mat and wall gave me a great space for lighting and I loved the metal pull down garage door for the background. I added a splash light behind him to give a bit of separation from the background. And for the first time in any posed photography in my life, the first shot nailed it.

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My typical process takes several steps to figure out lighting, poses, props, backdrops, etc. And there usually is a good amount of time just getting comfortable with my model, my gear, and the space before I see what I’m thinking will be the final shot. So, this time, with the first shots being the winners, we spent some extra time just trying random poses to see if something else would click. In the end, the first remained the best.