Lieutenant General Poffley Portrait Sitting

Lieutenant General Poffley, Portrait Sitting (Rory Lewis Military Portrait Photographer 2016)

Lieutenant General Mark Poffley OBE graciously accepted my invitation to sit for a formal portrait at the Ministry of Defence headquarters in Whitehall, London. Commissioned into the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in 1985, Lieutenant General Poffley dedicated more than three decades to the British Army, serving with distinction across every major conflict of the last thirty years—including the Gulf War, the Bosnian War, operations in the Republic of Macedonia, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

This sitting forms part of Soldiery, the ongoing body of work created through the Rory Lewis Non-Profit, dedicated to preserving contemporary military history through museum-grade portraiture. My intention was to portray Lieutenant General Poffley not simply as a senior officer, but as a leader shaped by responsibility, experience, and service. Drawing inspiration from historic military portraitists such as George Dawe, I employed strong, composed body language, a restrained palette, and a slightly lower camera angle to emphasise stature, authority, and quiet resolve.

Lieutenant General Poffley, Portrait Sitting (Rory Lewis Military Portrait Photographer 2019)

Portraits such as this aim to bridge past and present—linking the visual language of historic military art with the lived reality of modern service. Through these sittings, the non-profit continues its mission to honour those who have served, while creating a permanent visual record for future generations.