When I started thinking about the type of portraiture I wanted to do I looked at a lot of styles. What I found was a lot of studio photography being done is geared towards the safer look--the lighting is softer and usually the shadows are very light. Backgrounds seemed to be the same from studio to studio - even the outdoor scenes seemed to be the same. I went way back into the past and started to look at early photography masters and I began to find a style of photography that I thought tied into my way of working. George Hurrell, Edward Steichen and even to some extent Yosuf Karsh all used light in much bolder ways. So when I get a chance to try something, I generally go more for this style than the softer--safer styles. Sometimes this works. I think when photographing athletes especially using a 'spotlight' works well. My studio session with MASH quarterback Aaron Lloyd on Sunday, because of the rain was entirely in the studio. Aaron wasn't thrilled about having his picture taken so I really wanted to make the session easy-going and I really wanted the pictures to be....well cool! I have many more of him smiling(his mom wanted some shots of him smiling) and we did some 'safer-softer' shots as well and over the next few days I'll begin to edit-crop and tone these to show them, but I wanted to show these today as out featured pictures. I hope he and his family like them. We'll get to do some more outside shots of Aaron next week. SayerMotter Photographs by Richard Sayer