Portrait | Rick Wenner • New York City

Category Archives: Portrait

NY Fighter Project Preview

02.03.2012no commentsPhotography

For the past month I have been working on a personal project that I’ve titled the NY Fighter Project (tentative title). Although it is still in the very early stages, I thought that I’d give a preview into the project and show a few portraits. I have photographed 10 mixed martial arts fighters for this project so far and have an end goal of at least 50 portraits, so there’s a lot more work to be done. To give a very brief explanation of what I’m doing, I’m creating portraits of NY based MMA fighters and showing more than just a fighter in their portrait. I have a lot of shooting planned this month for the project and am very excited to continue working on this. The project has been gaining a lot of interest from the New York MMA community so I’m focused on making sure that I do the best that I can to help bring MMA to New York. As a huge fan of the sport since the early 90′s, I am really looking forward to being able to see an event at Madison Square Garden very soon.

Ryan Needle – Long Island MMA

Ryan LaFlare – Long Island MMA – Ring Of Combat Welterweight Champion – 6-0

Dennis Bermudez – Long Island MMA – The Ultimate Fighter Finalist – 7-3

To get more information on the progress of legalizing MMA in New York, keep an eye on The Fight Lawyer and NY MMA Now – Coalition to Legalize Mixed Martial Arts in New York.

James Bristow

01.17.2012one commentPortrait

James Bristow is a New York City based actor and model with a drive to succeed unlike anyone I’ve met in quite some time. I first met James when I photographed his roommate and long time friend Tavish O’Keefe (see Tavish’s photos here). We had some time to talk about what he has been working on since his move to NYC from Alaska and what he would like to accomplish in his career in 2012. Bristow knew that his head shots and creative portraits were not exactly “good quality” and wanted to schedule a shoot with me after seeing my work. A few weeks after first meeting James, I had him in front of my camera and the following portraits were created for him. We decided to shoot a variety of looks for his modeling portfolio and his website.

Our shoot started in James’ friend’s Brooklyn apartment. The light that poured into that room was simply beautiful, so I decided to only shoot available light with a little help from a silver reflector held by my assistant Dan. The portraits that were created in the apartment were to show natural and relaxed moments.

Our art director for James’ shoot kept an eye on us the entire shoot. Although she had four legs and drank water from a small bowl, she was proving to be hard to impress.

After our art director left the shoot to chase her toy around for a while, we decided it was time to head out to the back patio of the apartment. I really enjoyed shooting out there mainly because of the simple concrete and metal shapes the fencing created along with the buildings in the background. I asked James to bring along his coffee so that he can keep warm and also bring an extra element to his portraits. While I photographed James, Dan held the Elinchrom 39″ deep octabank just out of frame to get some light on James’ face.

In the portrait above, the light is being held over my head and in front of James’ face.

We then headed out to the streets of Wiliamsburg, Brooklyn for some more environmental portraits. Although it was very cold out, I’m quite happy with the above photo. I love the movement in the portrait with James trying to close his coat along with the smile and expression in his eyes. It’s simple and strong at the same time.

We spent about an hour or so outdoors, walking around Williamsburg in the freezing cold. Eventually we came across a small coffee shop and immediately headed in to warm up. This final portrait was captured just before we left the shop. I was getting ready to leave but saw some great reflections in the window of the shop. I simply asked James to sit near the window and I’ll take care of the rest.

Holiday Portraits

12.26.2011no commentsPersonal

Help Portrait

The holiday season brings many of us great memories, family experiences and giving gifts to those we love. Many of us even document these times with photographs so that we can look back and remember the good times that we had. Christmas 2011 was a very special year for me both personally and photographically. This year I decided that I would participate in a charity event called Help Portrait. This event has been going on every year for three years straight all over the world. The idea is very simple. Shoot a portrait – Print the portrait – Give the portrait. As simple as this sounds, the results are amazing. The event that I participated in was held at El Puente in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY. Families from this community who can’t afford to have their family portraits created came to the event and were given the gift of a photograph. I can’t tell you how many families I saw leave the building with enormous smiles on their face. One family that I photographed (the one you’ll see me shooting in the video) was particularly special to me because the mother pulled me to the side to let me know how grateful she was. That hit me hard. I’ve never participated in any kind of charity event before. To hear just how important this family portrait was to her and her family really made a strong impression on me. I am really looking forward to participating in next year’s Help Portrait.

To see the video that ABC World News with Diane Sawyer filmed at Help Portrait, go to THIS LINK. You have to sit through a quick commercial but I promise it is worth it.

Old Friends Give The Gift Of A Portrait

I also had an opportunity to work with some old friends of mine for a Christmas gift to their father. My old next door neighbors, who I haven’t seen in close to a decade, got in touch with me through Facebook and asked that I photograph portraits of them. I’ve known these two girls for basically their entire lives. Although we didn’t stay in touch with each other after I moved from my old home, we did keep up with each other’s lives through Facebook. So when they asked to have me photograph them for their father’s Christmas gift, I was very happy (and honored) I knew that I would create something special for them. I wanted to keep their portrait simple and minimal in composition so that the complete focus is on the two sisters. I referenced a bunch of photos of The Olsen Twins and other celebrity sisters to come up with some ideas for this shoot. The reference photos were presented to the girls and they loved the direction that I decided to go in for their shoot. The basic idea was simple fashion and fun interaction between the two girls. My good friend Erica Flamm Pennant handled hair and makeup styling for this shoot.