Rory Lewis Photographer Headshots & Portraiture

Executive & Corporate Headshots in New York

A Midtown Manhattan studio at 580 8th Avenue, and on-site commissions across Manhattan and Brooklyn. Principals, boards, leadership teams and fund partners, photographed by a British portraitist whose work sits in the National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Collection.

Midtown is eight blocks from more institutional capital than most countries hold

And almost all of it is represented online by photographs that could belong to anyone.

Finance, law and media leadership in New York share a particular problem: the people who commission these portraits are usually the ones with the most to say and the least said about them visually. A page of principals photographed flatly tells an investor that the firm regards its own people as interchangeable.

I photographed Ray Dalio with one dominant source and deep fall-off, and the frame I kept is one in which he is not addressing anyone — he is considering something, and the consideration has weight. That is what a portrait of a principal ought to contain, and it is close to the only thing that cannot be manufactured.

The Method

One dominant light, placed deliberately for the particular face, with shadow permitted to remain shadow. It is Caravaggio's arrangement and I say so plainly, because the reason it works on guarded people is that it removes the environment entirely — no desk, no bookshelf standing in for authority — and leaves bone structure and attention.

Twenty-three years of practice. Seven works in the National Portrait Gallery's permanent collection, sixteen in the Royal Collection, more than a hundred and fifty acquired by the National Army Museum. Five British Prime Ministers and reigning monarchs.

For a New York buyer that record means something narrower and more useful than prestige: this photographer has handled people more guarded, more time-pressured and more scrutinised than anyone on your board, and got something true inside a fixed window. That is precisely the fear an executive brings to a sitting.

What gets commissioned here

Single principal or founder portraits — 45 to 90 minutes in the studio. For press, investor materials, board pages and speaking programmes.

Leadership and investment teams — on site at your offices, 15 to 30 minutes per person, everyone matching.

Board and annual report portraits — two hours, made for print at size, retouched frame by frame.

Editorial and press portraits — where a publication or conference needs something with more in it than a headshot.

The process

1. Brief. Number of people, seniority mix, dates, on-site or studio, intended use.

2. Schedule. Individual time slots, in blocks, with a fifteen-minute gap every two hours. New York diaries slip; slack prevents a cascade.

3. Wardrobe brief. One email to everyone three weeks out. Mid-to-dark tones, minimal pattern, two options each.

4. The sitting. Set built ninety minutes ahead. Frames reviewed on a tethered screen before anyone leaves.

5. Selects. Proofing gallery within three working days.

6. Delivery. Retouched files within ten working days of sign-off, web and print resolution, named to your convention.

On-site or in the studio

Bring me to you above about eight people — moving twenty executives across Manhattan costs more in salary than any photographer charges, and someone will fail to arrive. Send people to the studio when the portrait matters more than the logistics, which for a founder or chairman it usually does.

I light entirely with my own studio heads either way, so a portrait made in your boardroom is built from exactly the same sources as one made in mine.

The studio

580 8th Avenue, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10018. Garment District, short walk from Times Square, Bryant Park and Penn Station. Serving Midtown, Downtown, Wall Street, Hudson Yards and Brooklyn.

FAQ

Can you photograph us at our offices? Yes. I need a room about five metres by four with a ceiling above two and a half, a door that closes and power. A boardroom is ideal.

How long per person? Fifteen minutes for a working portrait, thirty for anyone representing the firm publicly, two hours for a board or annual report portrait.

Will the team match? Yes. Measured, documented, repeatable lighting — the set can be rebuilt exactly for anyone photographed weeks later.

How many in a day? Twenty to twenty-five at fifteen minutes each.

How soon do we get files? Proofs in three working days, retouched files within ten of sign-off.

What does it cost? Quoted individually. Send the five briefing items above.

Do you shoot for annual reports? Yes, and it is a different commission from a headshot — more time, print-grade retouching, files delivered to the design agency's specification.

How often are you in New York? The diary is shared between London, Los Angeles and New York, so New York runs in concentrated blocks of three or four days rather than continuously. Book ahead.

Enquiries

Email RL@rorylewis.studio with your dates and firm size.

Capturing history, one portrait at a time.