Shaping My Visual Journey

A passion for art and design going back to my earliest memories, manifested in different ways over my lifetime, ultimately leading to my current profession as a portrait photographer. In the interim, I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the best in my role as art director and creative director for various magazines. My job entailed conceptualizing celebrity photo shoots and visual stories for fashion, beauty, and health/wellness editorial and commissioning the photographers best suited to the mission. The process was often logistically complex and mercurial, a challenge not for the faint of heart. But I loved every minute of it, and I’m extremely fortunate to have had many memorable experiences with wonderful people along the way. (I hasten to add, since I’m often asked, that without exception—OK, maybe one—every celebrity and model I’ve worked with was truly lovely and a pleasure to work with. I mean that with all sincerity.)

Continued after gallery . . .

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Directing involved creative decisions concerning photographic approach, location, props, wardrobe, makeup, and more comprising a magazine’s signature look and brand. It was a component of a publication’s entire design language, which was under my purview. Regarding photography specifically, the lighting signature, posing, color, retouching, and other considerations were carefully calibrated decisions, diligently adhered to, and incrementally improved. 

Throughout my decades of working and learning alongside top photographers, I envisioned transitioning from the relentless grind of publishing to a second career as a shooter. As early as the late 1990s, while leading Boston Magazine, I conceived a modern iteration of the once-ubiquitous downtown storefront photo studio. I imagined shop windows adorned with big, beautiful portraits on easels beckoning passers-by to drop in and arrange for sessions of their own. It would be a departure from the fusty, dreary, dated portrait styles that retail studios had become known for, replaced by dramatic, modern, editorial-style heirloom portraits. The contemporary equivalent of an oil painting, capturing a moment in time, each image a unique work of art, a family treasure to be passed down from one generation to the next. 

I remain fixated on that romantic vision and the conviction that it could revolutionize the portrait business and reclaim its rightful place as a community pillar in small and mid-sized town squares. And I have my experience in editorial photography to thank for the inspiration. —JH

For more of my editorial work, click here.