My work is quiet. Mostly available light, long lenses, very little direction. What I actually do is mostly waiting — I'll set the light, and then I'll talk to you until you forget the camera is in the room, and somewhere in that forgetting is the photograph.
I've been photographed exactly twice as an adult and I hated both of them. So when you tell me you're dreading this, I believe you. I also don't let it go, and there's a reason for that.
I only photograph people. Not weddings, not events, not products — I tried all three early on and was competent at none of them. Portraits are the only thing I've ever been genuinely good at, and I suspect it's because they're the only thing I've ever been genuinely curious about.
Fine-art portrait photographer in Hudson, New York. 15 years of talking people out of being nervous.
About June Ferrier
We used the least bad one. It was from a wedding. She's in the background, slightly out of focus, laughing at something outside the frame. It's the only picture I have of her looking like herself and it exists by accident.
I bought a camera that year. Not because of that, exactly. But it's the reason I only photograph people, and it's the reason I'm stubborn about it when you tell me you'd rather not.
Boxes of them. Birthdays, holidays, one whole album devoted to a dog that died before I was born. She took every single one. When she died we went looking for a photograph of her face for the service and found three, all bad, all taken by someone else in the middle of something else.
My grandmother left FORTY years of photographs and she was not in any of them.
Most portraiture is quietly in the business of correction. Softer light, better angle, the chin forward and down. It works, technically. You end up with a photograph of a person who looks like a more agreeable version of you, and some part of you knows it, and that's why you never print it.
I'd rather have the other thing. The face you make when you're actually thinking. The way your mouth goes when you're about to say something and decide not to. Those aren't flattering, particularly. They're just true, and true survives being looked at for thirty years.
A flattering photograph and a true one are not the same thing.
I apologized to myself twice.
Fifteen years. The first five were spent photographing things that didn't move, which taught me patience and very little else.
How Long
Individuals, mostly. Occasionally two people who like each other. If you're wondering whether your particular situation counts as a portrait, it probably does, and you should just ask.
The What
Hudson, New York. The studio is on Union Street and you can park directly outside it, which is one of several reasons I left the city. I travel for sessions — the river, the Catskills, and wherever else I'm invited.
The Where
Get to Know June
Things that have no bearing on your session whatsoever.
Two dogs, both mischievous , one of whom you may meet. A darkroom I use roughly four times a year and refuse to give up. Formerly CFO for a tech company, which explains the patience and the odd hours. I read constantly and remember nothing. I'm early to everything. I've lived here fifteen years and still get asked for directions, which I take as a compliment and answer incorrectly.
Sessions begin at $800
You don’t have to be ready. You don’t have to lose weight first, or grow your hair out, or wait for a better year. Those are just the reasons we give ourselves for waiting, and they’re very convincing, and they will still be here next year.
The photographs don’t exist yet. That’s the only problem here.
