8:00 — Set and sweep. Backdrop goes up, the chair lands on its tape mark, and the floor gets swept twice, because every speck shows at f/8. The kettle goes on. This is the whole secret of studio work: mornings are janitorial.
9:00 — Sitter one. Always the most nervous sitter first, while my energy is highest. Forty-five minutes, three memory-card swaps of conversation for every frame, and the first gallery selects are already starred by 9:40.
The middle hours
11:00–2:00 — Rhythm. Sitters two, three and four blur into a pleasant loop: tea, talk, ten minutes of frames, review together, next. The window light shifts, so the chair rotates a few degrees each hour — the tape marks have little clock positions drawn on them now.
2:00 — Lunch, non-negotiable. A tired photographer misses expressions. The studio goes dark for thirty minutes while I back up cards to two drives. Paranoia is a workflow.
The home stretch
3:00–5:00 — The light gets opinionated. Low winter sun starts raking across the backdrop. Instead of fighting it, sitters seven and eight get the dramatic version of the series — same chair, harder light, and honestly some of my favourite frames of the day.
5:30 — Wrap. Backdrop down, floor swept a third time, cards backed up twice more. Sitter nine's sneak peek goes out before dinner, because the fastest way to be forgiven a long day is a beautiful surprise in someone's inbox.
“Nobody remembers the seamless paper. Everybody remembers whether the room felt calm.”
— Studio notebook, page fourteen
The full result of days like this one became The Atelier Series — and if a forty-five-minute sitting sounds civilised, that is because it is. Book one and see.