Despo, Theodore, and Perseus

We’ve been seeing a lot of this sofa lately. Well, here’s one more session, but this time I did something different with it – added a backdrop, and lit it with an umbrella instead of window light.These are Lefteris’s parents, Perry’s grandparents, and two people for whom I am extremely grateful – for raising an amazing son (two amazing sons actually, but I’m only married to one!) and for welcoming me into their family with such acceptance and generosity. When Despo asked me to take photos of them with Perseus I immediately thought of this setup – and I love how it came out – grand, sort of timeless, and appropriately dramatic. Perry has some very amusing similarities with his pappous; the two of them definitely have a special connection. Perry actually has his other grandfather’s hands physically (my dad’s – and I have them too!), but we see him a LOT of the time with his hands folded across his belly, deep in contemplation – just like his philosopher pappous. They had the most beautiful little conversations in the mornings, in Greek of course, sometimes even ancient Greek as Theodore taught Perseus ancient theater texts. This was not one of those occasions…Finally a portrait of Despo. She’s so beautiful; and this is exactly the photo I’d first imagined taking.To wrap it up, here’s a behind-the-scenes shot showing how we set up and lit the scene. One thing I’ll note is that I used the black side of this giant reflector to minimize the light bouncing back into the shadows – which, without the black, really was quite a lot from the semi-gloss off-white paint in the room. Also, that yard-and-a-half of fabric does a good job of looking like wallpaper in the photos, don’t you think?More in the portfolio!