Portraits of Tiana

If you gave me the hypo­thet­i­cal option of pho­tograph­ing any­one I wanted, I’d ask if it could be some­one who had already passed away. If so, I’d choose a Byronic hero like Mikhail Lermontov, or another one of the 19th cen­tury Russian Romantics, or even Lord Byron himself.

If I could choose some­one liv­ing though, I’d choose Tiana.

Perhaps this is because my pre­vi­ous attrac­tion to red­heads (which I can attest has been long gone though very well doc­u­mented) has cre­ated some­thing of a bias in me.

She’s been the eas­i­est model to work with by far. We were fin­ished within 45 min­utes, both por­traits and the shoot for my project. I owe it to her pho­to­genic face, which can also pull off all sorts of haircuts.

Even when not smil­ing, there’s a cer­tain grace and strength beneath to her composure.

I love being able to find the hid­den beauty in peo­ple, so this was a rather empty chal­lenge. Tiana’s beauty is so overt and in your face, there’s no mys­te­ri­ous­ness or sub­tlety in it at all.

Of course, this isn’t exactly a bad thing.