recent
blog
blog
Jussie Smollett
Aug 13, 2025
I try to never bring my preconceived notions to a shoot. There is a social contract between the photographer and sitter that the sitter will show up and play along and the photographer will try to get the best image of him or her that he can muster.
Sometimes the sitter is a famous performer or other luminary and sometimes they have gone through an incredibly public scandal and remain, to many people, persona non grata. This shoot was the latter.
There is a new documentary on Netflix called “The Truth About Jussie Smollett,” the goes over the scandal and brings new perspectives to light. Whether it exonerates Jussie Smollett is an open question that is not for me to answer. My job was to try to take a picture that spoke to the person behind the headlines. Who. Is. He. And I think, in my small way, I found that person.