Portrait photography in France

A studio session buys you control. The light does not change while you work, the background is whatever you decided it should be, and nothing outside the room can go wrong — which is why this is the session to book when the photograph has a job to do: a profile that has to look current, a press kit, a book, a company page where everyone must match.

The hour is built around two lighting set-ups and two backgrounds, so you leave with more than one register rather than twenty-five versions of a single frame. Expect direction throughout. Almost nobody knows what to do with their hands, and being told is a relief rather than an imposition.

The selection is made together at the end of the session, on screen, before you leave. That is deliberate: you see what was caught while you still remember the moment it was caught in, and you are not left choosing between thumbnails a week later. Twenty-five retouched photographs follow in a private gallery within 48 to 72 hours.