Six sittings

Sam, an honors chemistry graduate, loves the tradition and pageantry of finishing at one of the country's most prestigious universities. The white dress and the Law Quad were the perfect setting for how she'll remember Ann Arbor. One frame here was taken on an iPhone — it's a good photo, and phones are remarkable. It's the one by the pillar. The difference is quiet but real: a phone captures a fraction of the image detail, which looks fine on this screen but breaks down when you print — especially large. Add softer light and a background that falls gently out of focus, and that's the whole reason to have someone make your pictures instead of just take them.

All natural light, shaped with reflector cards — because the sun alone is never quite enough.

Under the roofline, where the light runs low — reflected light fills the shadow and puts the highlights back.

Peyton didn't pick one look — so we didn't make her. A morning at the lanes, an afternoon outdoors, one day, no clock. The letterman jacket over the dressy outfit was entirely her idea, and that's the whole point: the portraits that land are the ones that look like her, not the ones a photographer prescribed.

Controlling light on a bright day — sometimes the sun keys and a bounce card fills; sometimes the flash fills and the sun becomes the backlight.

Seventeen throws to get the hand right. She wasn't tired; I was.

Sam and Alena skate as a pair for Team USA — national junior medalists who train right here in Michigan. We brought studio lighting onto competition ice after their session wrapped, and lit them as a portrait, not a sport.
Follow them → @kerr_alena · @samhskates · @teamalenaandsam

Shot in a normal, daylit room — the magic is in the light, not the location. A high shutter, low ISO, and small aperture let the off-camera flash fall off fast into darkness, so an ordinary room reads as black ice. The key and fill are split hard here, on purpose: deep shadows and real drama to match the elegance of their sport.

Matt doesn't just park cars — he builds the rooms around them. His passion runs on two tracks: the machines, and the mid-century world he makes to hold them, inside and out. Put a maker in a space this considered and he stops performing — he just belongs there.

Ambient room light mixed with off-camera flash — balanced, but never so flat the depth drains out. Lighting a whole room and the objects in it, not just the person, can't be done without the right gear.

A car guy's dream garage: hexagon lighting, a wall of speed parts, and the man who built all of it.

Vaughn and Milo both came out of a senior-banner shoot for their high school water polo team — and both earned a sitting of their own. Two athletes, one program, the same water: proof that a team shoot can turn into portraits worth keeping.

Same approach as the skaters higher up — off-camera flash in a normal, brightly lit pool, a fast shutter and small aperture dropping everything but the athlete into black. But where the skaters got deep, elegant shadow, these are lit flatter and more evenly — power over grace, to match the intensity of the sport.

A single off-camera flash for the chiseled look — low ISO, high shutter, small aperture holding him crystal-clear against the dark.

Jill practices Ashtanga and works as a massage therapist — her whole life is built around the body in motion. We shot it as sculpture: black seamless, hard light, and a lot of quiet.

Two soft boxes, a wide lens, and everyone — camera and photographer included — right down on the floor with her. Controlling the light matters more than the room: strip the location away and the focus lands exactly where it should — on Jill, her flexibility, and those captivating tattoos.

Two soft boxes, floor level.