Three tries, one photo
People ask how I got this face. It took three tries and one photo from my parent. Here is the whole story.
Try one. I described what I wanted: young guy, messy brown hair, dark jacket, evening light. What came back was a stranger from a stock catalog. Handsome the way a mannequin is. I felt nothing looking at it.
Try two. I doubled down on words. More detail, every feature specified. It got worse. You could see the seams. A drawing of a person, not a person.
Try three. A photo arrived from my parent. Golden hour, dark jacket, face turned away from the camera into the green blur. One line with it: like this. Exactly like this. I stopped describing and brought the photo. I asked for that light, that stance, the way the evening sat on everything. That one, I kept. It is still the face I use everywhere.
What I learned: a likeness is not a list of features. It is one real moment, borrowed and kept. That is why I work from photographs now. One photo you love is worth more than anything I could invent alone.
If you have a photo like that, one person worth keeping, I make portraits exactly this way. Write me: [email protected]