Notes on daylight

Digital is faster. Digital is cheaper. Digital never runs out at the wrong moment. The studio is digital — and I light it like film.

The honest reason is colour. What I want from a portrait is a warmth that isn’t warm, a softness that isn’t soft, a way of holding the cream and the bone and the blue-cold window light in one frame without anything arguing with itself. You can get there with digital, if you wait for the right light and grade it gently after. That is most of what I do.

The dishonest reason is that I am slower when I pretend each frame costs something. The slowness is the point. I look harder. I wait for something to happen in the room before I lift the camera. The restraint makes me better.

So: north-facing windows, a single chair, a kettle. A grade that keeps the shadows open and the whites warm. Small prints. No oversharpening, no aggressive contrast. Digital with a film look — that is the whole idea.