Rachael Leigh Cook – June 9, 2010 (Upscale embedded with SynthID)

The Gear

Lens: Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 17-55mm f/2.8G IF-ED at 17mm (borrowed from Nathan Mitchell)

Camera: Nikon D300

Settings: 1/80, f/2.8, ISO 400

Lighting: Natural window light

Technique: Prisming

The Goal

Create a portrait that stood out from the chaos of a celebrity reception using nothing but natural light and a technique I was still figuring out.

The Vision

By June 2010 I had been experimenting with shooting through a triangular prism… something I originally purchased because my band, Prisms, was thinking about creating album art and I thought it might be cool to incorporate prism effects into the visuals. We never ended up using it for that purpose, but I kept playing with it anyway.

Just a day or two before this reception, I had taken my Nikon 50mm f/1.2 manual focus lens out for a test shoot with a model. The bokeh was beautiful, but I quickly realized that trying to manually focus a lens while simultaneously manipulating a prism in front of it was completely untenable. I needed one hand on the focus ring and one hand on the prism… but I only have two hands and the camera needs to be held somehow. So for the actual portrait of Rachael, I borrowed Nathan’s 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom lens. The autofocus freed up my brain to concentrate entirely on the prism work.

The lighting setup was dead simple… just the natural light from the windows in the space. Late afternoon sun coming through the tall Press Club windows creates beautiful soft light, and when you add prismatic reflections into the mix, you get these streaks and orbs of light that feel almost painterly. The wide 17mm focal length on a DX body gave me that environmental portrait feel while still maintaining a strong subject presence.

The Story

This wasn’t a National Press Club event, but the connection came through my work there. Women Deliver was a massive global health conference focused on maternal and reproductive health, and their 2010 conference brought over 3,400 advocates, policymakers, and celebrities to Washington DC. Throughout that year I photographed five or six of their events, including their huge main conference and several satellite receptions.

For this particular day, I spent the entire afternoon with Rachael Leigh Cook and Jennifer Beals as they went around Capitol Hill lobbying members of Congress on global maternal health issues. It was fascinating to watch two Hollywood actresses navigate the halls of power, genuinely passionate about the cause rather than just showing up for a photo op.

By the time we arrived at the United Nations Foundation reception, I’d gotten to know Rachael pretty well. When I asked if she could step aside for a quick portrait before the chaos of the reception began, she was gracious enough to give me a few minutes. The earrings you see in the portrait… one of them fell off during the reception and actually ended up inside her dress. You can see in some of the later shots that her right earring is missing.

My friend Nathan Mitchell was there to help cover the event, and we swapped cameras throughout the evening. I shot the portrait and some early reception coverage, and Nathan handled most of the candid work during the autograph signing and mingling. One of his shots… you can see her signing headshots while glancing back at the camera with this knowing smirk… perfectly captures the playful energy she had that night. You can also spot Ted Turner, founder of the UN Foundation, in several frames examining what looks like a friendship bracelet with one of the delegates.

The other celebrities present included Jennifer Beals, who was deeply involved with Women Deliver’s mission and spent the reception talking with first ladies from several African nations about gender issues. It was a who’s who of global health advocates mixed with Hollywood glamour… not a typical Tuesday.

And yes, I’ll admit it… Rachael Leigh Cook was one of my childhood crushes. Between She’s All That and Josie and the Pussycats, I’d been a fan since way back. Getting to spend the day with her and then create this portrait felt like some kind of cosmic reward for all those awkward teenage years.

The Lesson

Sometimes the technically “better” option isn’t the right one. The Nikon 50mm f/1.2 would have given me superior bokeh, but the manual focus made it impossible to combine with prisming. Nathan’s zoom lens was “worse” on paper but actually allowed me to execute the shot I had in my head. Autofocus freed my mental bandwidth to concentrate on the experimental technique I was trying to develop.

This was still very early in my prism experimentation… years before I’d write about it publicly and years before other photographers would start calling it “hurding.” I was just messing around with a piece of glass I bought for my band, trying to make something that looked different from every other event photo. The technique requires practice and the willingness to accept that most frames won’t work. But when it does work… you get these light distortions and reflections that feel almost accidental, like something that couldn’t possibly have been done on purpose, which is exactly what makes them interesting.

Also: shoutout to Nathan Mitchell, who not only lent me his lens but covered the rest of the reception so I could leave with my portrait in hand. He lives right down the street from me now in Baltimore and still plays guitar in Prisms.