Upcoming Dates & Locations
On Thursday 12 November 2026, I am giving my Central London studio over entirely to thirty-minute update sessions.It is the only date I will offer them in London this year.
Each session is two looks and one image, fully retouched.
One day of thirty-minute update headshots in Midtown Manhattan — two looks, one image fully retouched, and the only date I am offering them in New York this year.
I'm delighted to be back at my Midtown Manhattan studio from Thursday 5 to Saturday 7 November, with a limited number of sessions available across three days.
Two days of sittings in Midtown on 17 and 18 September, at Young Studio on 8th Avenue, followed by the New York masterclass on the Saturday. Actors, executives and commissioned portraits — one light, dark ground, as always.
On Friday 11 September 2026 I am opening the Downtown Los Angeles studio for a single day of thirty-minute headshot update sessions. Each one gives you two looks and one retouched image, and it is the only date this year I will offer them.
Latest Jottings
يسرّ المصوّر البريطاني روري لويس أن يقدّم بورتريه صاحب الجلالة الملك عبدالله الثاني ابن الحسين، ملك المملكة الأردنية الهاشمية، الذي التُقط في تموز 2026. يظهر جلالته بالشماغ والعقال، وتجمع الصورة بين وقار الملكية وأصالة الإرث الهاشمي. أمّا معالجة الضوء فمستوحاة من تقاليد كبار الرسّامين الكلاسيكيين.
I was delighted to be invited by B&H Photo to give a lecture at their New York home. In it I talked through some of the portraits that matter most to me. These include the ones people know best, and a few that hold a quieter place in the archive. The full talk is now on their YouTube channel, and you can watch it here.
Sir Patrick Stewart died on Wednesday, 28 October 2026, in Los Angeles. He was 86.
I heard the news this morning and went straight to the archive. I wanted to look at him again the way I saw him through the lens: still, unguarded, and entirely present. Some sitters perform for the camera. Patrick simply arrived, and let the light do the rest.
Latest Actors Headshots
Graham’s new series, Nocturne, makes its global debut on Friday, October 30, 2026 with the first two episodes, with new episodes every Friday through December 25 on Apple TV. Originally titled Lazarus, the 10-episode drama was written by Rowan Joffe and John Hlavin and also stars Liev Schreiber and Zazie Beetz. Schreiber plays Jonah Lynn, a former soldier turned homicide detective who leaves Philadelphia for a quiet life in a small Western Pennsylvania town, only for the town and his family to come under attack from the serial killer Jurek Walter, played by Graham
Following portrait sessions across Los Angeles and New York, I am returning to my Central London studio from 11 to 24 November for a dedicated run of actor headshot sittings.
In an industry where casting directors form an impression in the fraction of a second a thumbnail appears on Spotlight, a headshot cannot simply document your likeness. It must reveal character, communicate presence, and establish immediate credibility.
On Thursday 12 November 2026, I am giving my Central London studio over entirely to thirty-minute update sessions.It is the only date I will offer them in London this year.
Each session is two looks and one image, fully retouched.
In August I wrote that September could well be my last New York dates of the year. It wasn’t. Four more days have opened in early November, Thursday the 5th to Sunday the 8th, and I’m giving them to actors.
The timing is good. Images made now are proofed, retouched and on your profiles well before the new year, when casting picks up again and every office in the city wants to see something current. It is also the last clear window before the holidays take over the calendar.
A return sitting at the Downtown Los Angeles studio, and the case for every actor owning a villain.
Chauncey Alan has played Caesar. This time he came back to the Los Angeles studio wanting to be Cassius.
Not literally, but the brief was close. Chauncey needed a villainous headshot for his castings: one image that tells a casting director, in the half-second a thumbnail gets, that he can be trusted with the man nobody should trust. Shakespeare gave Caesar the line that describes exactly what we were after: “Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; / He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.”
Some faces arrive at the studio already halfway to a painting. Devin McElvogue walked into the Downtown Los Angeles studio with a head of tight copper curls, a red beard, and a pair of hazel eyes that, under the right light, turn almost amber. A gift for a portrait photographer, but also a responsibility: when a sitter’s colouring is this distinctive, the headshot has to render it truthfully. Casting directors are not booking an idea of a redhead. They are booking Devin.
Christian Bell stepped into the Downtown Los Angeles studio carrying a look that immediately commands attention. The striking two-tone afro — rich dark curls giving way to a crown of silver-white — became the defining feature of the session, but it was the face beneath it that made the images sing.
Travis Quentin Young brought the full weight of his Louisiana upbringing and Los Angeles-honed versatility into the Downtown Los Angeles studio. Born in Lake Charles and already performing on national television by the age of ten, Young carries a quiet authority that belies his years on screen.
Billy Hirsch arrived at the Downtown Los Angeles studio with the same unfiltered energy that defines his work. Brooklyn-born and now a Southern California transplant, he carries that unmistakable East Coast edge softened by West Coast ease — a combination that makes him instantly compelling on camera.
One day of thirty-minute update headshots in Midtown Manhattan — two looks, one image fully retouched, and the only date I am offering them in New York this year.
People sometimes ask me why an actor should sit for a headshot with a portrait photographer rather than a headshot photographer. It is a fair question, and the honest answer is that the distinction shouldn't exist. A headshot is a portrait — it is simply a portrait with a job to do. It has to walk into a casting director's inbox at nine in the morning, sit alongside three hundred others, and make somebody stop scrolling. That is not achieved with a white seamless and a ring light. It is achieved by looking properly at a face, understanding what it does, and lighting it the way the old masters lit theirs: with intent.
Last week Clancy Brown came to the Downtown Los Angeles studio, and I finally had the chance to build a picture I have been carrying around in my head for some time: a man at a table, with bread and wine and fruit in front of him, lit the way the Old Masters lit their suppers.
Two days of sittings in Midtown on 17 and 18 September, at Young Studio on 8th Avenue, followed by the New York masterclass on the Saturday. Actors, executives and commissioned portraits — one light, dark ground, as always.
On Friday 11 September 2026 I am opening the Downtown Los Angeles studio for a single day of thirty-minute headshot update sessions. Each one gives you two looks and one retouched image, and it is the only date this year I will offer them.
There is a particular pleasure in photographing an actor who has spent time in the eighteenth century. Tom Connolly leads the feature film Love, Courage and the Battle of Bushy Run as Colonel Henry Bouquet, the Swiss-born British Army officer whose victory at Bushy Run opened the road to the relief of Fort Pitt. The battle was fought, as it happens, in the first week of August, two hundred and sixty-three years ago this month.
14 August – 17 September 2026 · 411 S Main Street, Unit 222, Downtown Los Angeles
My Los Angeles diary is open from 14 August to 17 September, and I am now taking bookings for headshot sessions, commissioned portrait sittings, and private tuition. After 17 September I return to London and New York, and these are the last extended Los Angeles dates before the autumn.
There is a particular kind of face the camera waits for. Not the arranged one, not the face that performs readiness the moment a lens appears, but the one that carries a thought behind the eyes and lets you watch it move. Michael DelaFlor brought exactly that into my New York studio, and it made the work a pleasure.
I return to New York this August. From Saturday 9 to Wednesday 13 August, my studio at 580 8th Avenue — twenty floors above the Garment District, a few minutes' walk from Times Square and the theatre houses — will be open for actor headshots, portrait sittings, and corporate headshots.
There are faces the camera simply agrees with, and Fedly Daniel has one of them. He came to my Midtown Manhattan studio (580 8th Avenue, 20th Floor) for a new set of actor headshots, and from the first frame the session had that quality I'm always chasing — stillness with something moving underneath.
There's a particular pleasure in a sitter you clock the moment they come through the door, and Alex Wyndham was one of them — Maecenas himself, Octavian's silken fixer from the second season of Rome, standing in my Downtown LA studio some seventeen years on and none the worse for it. I confess I said as much straight away, which is not always the done thing with actors, but there it was. One doesn't forget a face that spent a whole season murmuring political poison into a young Caesar's ear.
Rory Lewis Photographer here, with some splendid news from the casting desks of Hollywood. My warmest congratulations to the wonderful Rosanny Zayas, who has officially joined the recurring cast of HBO Max's acclaimed medical drama The Pitt for its third season. Rosanny will play Physician Assistant Vera Delgado, scrubbing in alongside Noah Wyle and company at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center when the new season arrives in January 2027.
The stage actor's face, and what a camera asks of it
There is a particular ease to photographing an actor who has spent real time on a stage. The instrument is already tuned. Francis Price came to the Main Street studio with exactly that — a classically trained presence that knows how to hold stillness without going dead behind the eyes, which is the whole quiet art of a good headshot.
There's a particular kind of session that arrives when an actor steps back into the room after time away. The face is the same. The man behind it isn't — and the work, if it's any good, has to hold both.
Brian Kolb came to the Main Street studio to mark exactly that: a return to acting after a break, and the new narrative that comes with it. The brief was not one look, but range — the proof a casting director needs that a man can be cast in more than a single drawer. So we built six, and we built them to argue with each other.
Spent an afternoon at the Downtown studio with actor Elvis Winterbottom, in for a set of headshots built to carry across casting briefs. We talked a great deal between setups, and he turned out to be genuinely interesting company, the kind of sitter who makes the hours run away from you. We worked through a deliberate range of looks: a plain dark tee and mock neck for the stripped-back theatrical frames, a navy waffle knit, a tailored blazer over a soft blue shirt for the producer and executive read, and a weathered leather jacket for something with more grit. One man, several characters, which is exactly what a working actor needs the camera to hold.
I had the privilege this week of photographing Babs Olusanmokun in my London studio, and as I worked I found myself thinking, not for the first time, about how often I get to say that word — privilege — about the Black actors who find their way to my chair.
There is a particular quiet that settles over a portrait sitting when the subject is, by trade, a maker of sound. The performer who fills a room — who has stood in front of seventeen thousand people at the Coca-Cola Arena and held them — arrives in my studio and discovers that the only instrument I am asking him to play is his own stillness. Nick Pritchard understood this faster than most.
There is a particular satisfaction in taking down a body of work you have looked at for too long and replacing it with something better. I have just done exactly that. The headshot portfolio has been rebuilt from the ground up — newer sittings, harder edits, a great deal that didn't make the cut. What's left is, I think, the strongest the studio has put out.
Kiko Macan came to the Downtown Los Angeles studio this week for new headshots, and I was rather pleased he did. Kiko is one of those sitters who arrives with two careers in his pocket — actor and director — which makes the session a more interesting puzzle than usual. A headshot for an actor sells presence; a portrait for a director sells authority. We set out to do both.
Some sitters arrive at the studio with a CV; Jacobo Fe Gismera arrived with a biography that reads like one of his own screenplays. A Spaniard in Los Angeles by way of UCLA, he was the youngest novelist in Spain to publish in the historical genre, putting out his peplum novel Perfectus Imperator at nineteen, the same age he began a modelling career that has since run to hundreds of publications across a dozen or more countries.
There is a particular awkwardness, and a particular pleasure, in photographing another photographer. They know exactly what you are doing. They have stood where you are standing, made the same small adjustments to a collar, watched the same flicker of self-consciousness cross a face and waited it out. You cannot hide the mechanics from them, and so you stop trying.
Latest Portraits
Last week Clancy Brown came to the Downtown Los Angeles studio, and I finally had the chance to build a picture I have been carrying around in my head for some time: a man at a table, with bread and wine and fruit in front of him, lit the way the Old Masters lit their suppers.
There's a particular pleasure in a sitter you clock the moment they come through the door, and Alex Wyndham was one of them — Maecenas himself, Octavian's silken fixer from the second season of Rome, standing in my Downtown LA studio some seventeen years on and none the worse for it. I confess I said as much straight away, which is not always the done thing with actors, but there it was. One doesn't forget a face that spent a whole season murmuring political poison into a young Caesar's ear.
The stage actor's face, and what a camera asks of it
There is a particular ease to photographing an actor who has spent real time on a stage. The instrument is already tuned. Francis Price came to the Main Street studio with exactly that — a classically trained presence that knows how to hold stillness without going dead behind the eyes, which is the whole quiet art of a good headshot.
There's a particular kind of session that arrives when an actor steps back into the room after time away. The face is the same. The man behind it isn't — and the work, if it's any good, has to hold both.
Brian Kolb came to the Main Street studio to mark exactly that: a return to acting after a break, and the new narrative that comes with it. The brief was not one look, but range — the proof a casting director needs that a man can be cast in more than a single drawer. So we built six, and we built them to argue with each other.
Spent an afternoon at the Downtown studio with actor Elvis Winterbottom, in for a set of headshots built to carry across casting briefs. We talked a great deal between setups, and he turned out to be genuinely interesting company, the kind of sitter who makes the hours run away from you. We worked through a deliberate range of looks: a plain dark tee and mock neck for the stripped-back theatrical frames, a navy waffle knit, a tailored blazer over a soft blue shirt for the producer and executive read, and a weathered leather jacket for something with more grit. One man, several characters, which is exactly what a working actor needs the camera to hold.
Andy Burnham, sworn in only today as the new Member of Parliament for Makerfield, confirmed he would stand. Wes Streeting, the one figure thought capable of mounting a challenge, set aside his own ambitions and offered his backing instead. The party has rallied. If no rival emerges when nominations open on 9 July, Burnham could enter Downing Street within weeks. For now he is not Prime Minister, but he has been practically crowned as one.
Most of the best things that happen in this trade arrive sideways, by way of a handshake you weren't expecting. This was one of those.
I had been asked to speak at Samy's, here in Los Angeles, on the subject of Godox lighting — a perfectly cheerful evening of light shaping and the usual debates about modifiers, where two photographers can disagree for an hour and both be right. When it was over a gentleman came up, introduced himself, and put a card in my hand. Edward Goldstein. He mentioned, almost in passing, that he did some modelling.
The news from Westminster this week confirms what many in the Labour movement have suspected for some time. Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, has been cleared by Labour's National Executive Committee to contest the Makerfield by-election — the seat vacated by Josh Simons — with a view to challenging Sir Keir Starmer for the leadership of the Labour Party.
Portraits of Babs Olusanmokun, London | Rory Lewis
Portrait photographer Rory Lewis on capturing actor Babs Olusanmokun (Dune, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds) at his London studio — five years in the making.
Projects
Across this series, I photograph actors and models adorned in the elegance of the 1930s, set against historically resonant backdrops. Each portrait becomes a temporal bridge — an echo of what might have been seen through the Chronovisoritself. Drawing influence from Frank Herbert, Caravaggio, David Lynch, Gustave Doré, and Ribera, I merge surrealism, chiaroscuro, and historical drama to craft scenes that feel both ancient and immediate, suspended between dream and memory.
It’s not unusual for photographers to draw inspiration from other forms of art. In my own work, the influence of Renaissance Italy is unmistakable. Inspired by Old Masters such as Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Titian, and Ribera, I’ve long sought to recreate the light, atmosphere, and tonal depth found in classical painting. This approach is especially evident in my latest project, Selah.
Britannia is an ambitious, ongoing portrait series celebrating the unique heritage, identity, and diversity of modern Britain. The project seeks to honour the individuals who shape the nation—capturing the faces, stories, and spirit of those whose contributions define contemporary British life.
Between 2014 and 2020, I had the immense privilege of photographing some of Los Angeles’ finest actors—artists whose work shaped my childhood in the 1980s and 90s, and whose performances continue to resonate across generations. Many of these remarkable individuals have since left us, which makes these sittings all the more meaningful.
Following the success of Soldiery (British Army Portraits), I sought to create a project equally powerful, human, and historically resonant. This pursuit led me to Soldati della Repubblica, a comprehensive portrait series documenting the modern Italian Army in the early 21st century.
Dopo il successo del progetto Soldiery (British Army Portraits), desideravo realizzare un’opera altrettanto intensa, umana e ricca di risonanza storica. Questa ricerca mi ha condotto a Soldati della Repubblica, una serie di ritratti che documenta l’Esercito Italiano all’inizio del XXI secolo.
Between 2016 and 2019, I dedicated over three years to this project, travelling the length and breadth of the United Kingdom — from Fort George in Inverness to the Yorkshire Dales, and then south to London, Andover, and Aldershot. Working closely with the Army, I conducted hundreds of sittings with its leaders, individuals, and regiments, capturing the essence of service through the faces of those who embody it.
Early in my career, like many photographers, I balanced a broad commercial workload — shooting everything from industrial products to aspiring actors — while yearning to focus on portraiture that was deeply human, expressive, and timeless. By my early thirties, I felt the urgency to define my artistic voice and create work that reflected who I truly was as a photographer. I knew that to attract the attention of editors, curators, and agents, I needed to produce a body of work entirely on my own terms — one that would both challenge and inspire.
Thesis
A portrait photographer spends his working life reading faces that have been trained not to be read. Politicians are the hardest sitters of all. They arrive with a surface that has been built over decades and maintained daily, and the first ten minutes of any sitting are spent watching that surface hold. It is only when something interrupts the routine that anything else appears.
There are few individuals who carry the weight of cultural history, charisma, and enduring presence quite like William Shatner. Today, we celebrate not only his birthday, but a remarkable creative journey—one I’ve had the privilege of documenting since 2014.
I have had the honour of photographing Prince Michael of Kent on several occasions over the years. Portrait sittings such as these are precisely why I became a photographer—to capture not only a likeness, but a moment within history.
Trusted by Britain’s Greatest Acting Talent — Why Go Anywhere Else?
In a city as competitive as London, actors do not rise on luck alone. They rise on clarity, presence, and precision — and nowhere is that more evident than in the headshot that opens the casting door.
This post continues my portrait collaboration with Eva Elfie, exploring classical painting influences through contemporary photographic portraiture. The intention was not imitation, but translation—carrying the psychological and spiritual intensity of Baroque painting into a modern visual language.
For much of my life, British comedy has been a formative influence—not simply as entertainment, but as a lens through which human behaviour, discomfort, and contradiction are examined. Few creative forces shaped that understanding more profoundly than The League of Gentlemen. Its world of grotesque beauty, psychological unease, and pitch-black humour revealed that comedy could be as atmospheric and unsettling as it was funny—an approach that continues to inform my portrait practice today.
Commissioned executive portrait photography in Los Angeles for CEOs, board members, investors, and institutional leaders. Authority-driven, cinematic power portraits created for governance, press, and legacy use worldwide.
While revisiting my archive, I recently rediscovered a series of group portraits made in Rome in September 2018—photographs of the Reggimento Corazzieri, the elite cuirassiers of Italy and the ceremonial honour guard of the President of the Italian Republic.
Few military specialists operate with greater restraint—or greater consequence—than the sniper. Trained to observe without detection, to wait without movement, and to act with absolute precision, snipers exist on the margins of visibility. Their presence is rarely acknowledged, yet their influence is profound.
Non Profit Work
His Majesty King Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein, King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, photographed in July 2026.
Photograph © Rory Lewis.
There is a particular stillness in people who have spent a career moving toward what everyone else is fleeing. Captain Glennon has it. A near twenty-year veteran of the department, captain and paramedic, he sat as soldiers sit: upright, unhurried, direct. No performance. The face does the work.
I am honoured to share that my portrait of Field Marshal The Lord Houghton of Richmond, GCB, CBE, DL, has been accepted into the Royal Collection — one of thirteen works from my non-profit archive now preserved within it, and among the most recent.
I am honoured to share that two further portraits of His Royal Highness Prince Michael of Kent — photographed as Senior Colonel of The King's Royal Hussars — have been accepted into the Royal Collection, completing his contribution to the thirteen works from my archive now preserved there.
I am delighted to share that my two portraits of His Royal Highness Prince Michael of Kent, photographed as Royal Honorary Colonel of The Honourable Artillery Company, have been accepted into the Royal Collection — part of the thirteen works from my non-profit archive now held there.
It is with great pride that I share that three further portraits of His Royal Highness The Duke of Kent — photographed in Royal Air Force uniform — have been accepted into the Royal Collection. They join the Field Marshal portraits as part of a body of thirteen works from my non-profit archive now preserved within that collection.
I am profoundly honoured to share that my three portraits of His Royal Highness The Duke of Kent, photographed in his ceremonial uniform as Field Marshal, have been accepted into the Royal Collection — among thirteen works from my non-profit archive now held within that historic institution. To have these images preserved in the nation's foremost royal collection is the highest honour the Soldiery project has yet received.
I am honoured to share that my portrait of Field Marshal The Lord Richards of Herstmonceux, GCB, CBE, DSO, DL, has been accepted into the Royal Collection, completing the thirteen works from my non-profit archive now held within that institution.
It is a moment of real significance for my non-profit archive that my portrait of Field Marshal The Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank has been accepted into the Royal Collection, among thirteen works from the archive now held within that institution. This was the first portrait of a British Field Marshal I ever made, and to see it enter the Royal Collection feels like the completion of a circle.
We are five months into 2026, and I can count the Heroes in Focus sittings I've done this year on one hand. That has to change — and soon, because the pace the archive needs is not the pace it is currently moving at. I want to be straight about that, because the work matters too much for me to dress it up.
While in London, I had the distinct privilege of photographing our Honorary Military Patron, General (Retd) Sir James Everard KCB CBE, a soldier-scholar whose 38 years of distinguished service embody the very values Heroes in Focus Inc. seeks to preserve through portraiture.
As 2025 draws to a close, this year stands as one of the most significant in the life of the Rory Lewis Non-Profit. It has been a year defined by responsibility, remembrance, and the continued belief that portraiture can serve history — not as decoration, but as record.
This portrait, created as part of the ongoing work of the Rory Lewis Non-Profit, documents General Sir Roly Walker, the professional head of the British Army.
Commissioned into the Irish Guards in 1993, General Walker has commanded at company, battle group, brigade, and strategic levels, with operational service in Northern Ireland, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He commanded the Grenadier Guards in 2009 and later served across brigade, divisional, army, and strategic headquarters.
I am very pleased to be able to provide The Rifles Berkshire & Wiltshire Museum with a portrait of Captain Massey, from the 1st Battalion, The Rifles, for inclusion in their newly redeveloped galleries in Salisbury.
The Royal Yorkshire Regiment, custodian of more than three centuries of British military heritage, has acquired the portrait of Field Marshal The Lord Houghton of Richmond.
The Royal Artillery Museum has acquired a portrait of Field Marshal The Lord Richards of Herstmonceux, photographed by Rory Lewis as part of his non-profit military portraiture project. Lord Richards, the twelfth Gunner to reach the rank of Field Marshal and former Chief of the Defence Staff (2009–2013), was recently appointed Patron of the Royal Artillery Museum.
A significant milestone in the ongoing mission to preserve military heritage — The Green Howards Museum has officially acquired Rory Lewis’s portrait of Field Marshal The Lord Houghton of Richmond.
Through the Rory Lewis Non-Profit, I am dedicated to preserving the faces and stories of those whose courage defines our shared history. It was an honour to capture the portrait of Mike Pratt, GC, whose bravery and humility stand among the finest examples of service.
On October 10, 2025, Rory Lewis welcomed Field Marshal The Lord Houghton of Richmond back to his London studio for a second portrait sitting, more than a decade after their first session in 2014. The portrait, part of Rory Lewis Non-Profit’s mission to document all living Field Marshals, captures Lord Houghton’s journey from active command to statesman. Commissioned into the Green Howards in 1974, Lord Houghton served in Northern Ireland, Iraq, and as Chief of the Defence Staff before being promoted to Field Marshal in 2025. The portrait, rendered in Lewis’s signature chiaroscuro style, reflects leadership, wisdom, and legacy.
In October 2025, I had the honor of photographing Major General James Bowder OBE, the third consecutive Major-General of the Household Division I have captured for the Rory Lewis Non-Profit. Following my portraits of Major General Benjamin Bathurst CBE and Major General Chris Ghika CBE, this latest sitting continues an evolving visual record of those entrusted with upholding the highest traditions of the British Army and the Crown.
Field Marshal David Julian Richards, Baron Richards of Herstmonceux, GCB, CBE, DSO, DL—appointed Honorary Field Marshal by His Majesty The King in June 2025—sat for my non-profit archive on Monday, 6 October 2025. This portrait marks a significant addition to our mission to document the living history of Britain’s senior military leadership through the art of portraiture.
On October 7, 2023, Israel was plunged into chaos when Hamas launched a brutal surprise attack, leaving over a thousand civilians dead and the nation on the brink of war. Among the Americans closest to the events was Gunnery Sergeant Marcus Lewis, Commander of the Marine Security Guard Detachment at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.
Among the most meaningful moments in my non-profit archive was the privilege of photographing Field Marshal Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank. It was not simply a portrait sitting, but an encounter with a man whose life spanned the defining military and political chapters of modern Britain.
In the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, I had the privilege of photographing Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Stauffer as part of my ongoing Heroes in Focus (Rory Lewis non-profit) military portrait initiative. This work exists to document service with dignity—creating lasting, museum-grade portraits that honour leadership, commitment, and the human story behind the uniform.
Portraiture, at its best, does more than record a likeness—it preserves leadership, responsibility, and history. In this portrait of General Sir James Everard, recently featured in The Telegraph, the aim was to convey not only authority, but the gravity of command carried by one of Britain’s most experienced senior officers.
My third visit to The Royal Lancers marked a significant moment in the continuing evolution of my long-term military portraiture work, now undertaken through my non-profit practice. Returning to the regiment in 2024 allowed for a deeper, more reflective engagement—building upon earlier sittings to create a cohesive body of work rooted in heritage, continuity, and service.
The Rory Lewis Non-Profit is proud to have funded the latest addition to the distinguished gallery of British Army leaders: a portrait of General Sir Patrick Sanders, KCB, CBE, DSO, ADC Gen. Serving as Chief of the General Staff since June 2022, Sir Patrick’s career exemplifies the leadership, dedication, and strategic excellence that define the modern British Army.
The Soldiery project by Rory Lewis now forms part of the permanent collection of the National Army Museum in London. This landmark acquisition underscores the project’s historical, cultural, and educational importance, and stands at the heart of the mission of the Rory Lewis Non-Profit: to preserve military heritage through museum-grade portraiture for future generations.
The Rory Lewis Non-Profit is honored to have captured and preserved the legacy of Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the current Chief of the Defence Staff, marking him as the fifth Chief of the Defence Staff photographed by Rory Lewis. This portrait continues the Non-Profit’s mission to document and celebrate the leadership and service of Britain’s most distinguished military figures.
Rory Lewis Non Profit is proud to donate a series of portraits to The Rifles Museum in Winchester. Located within the historic Winchester Military Quarter, the museum offers a compelling insight into the heritage and evolution of the British Army’s largest infantry regiment.
Following portrait sessions across Los Angeles and New York, I am returning to my Central London studio from 11 to 24 November for a dedicated run of actor headshot sittings.
In an industry where casting directors form an impression in the fraction of a second a thumbnail appears on Spotlight, a headshot cannot simply document your likeness. It must reveal character, communicate presence, and establish immediate credibility.