Eric Garcetti Portrait Sitting

Former Mayor of Los Angeles and current U.S. Ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, became my latest portrait subject during a recent session at my Los Angeles studio. As with all my political portraiture, the sitting was shaped not simply by technique, but by a deep well of artistic influence—most notably the indelible mark left on me by Hans Holbein the Younger. Holbein’s work has been woven into my visual consciousness since childhood. Even before I understood it, I was absorbing the weight and clarity of his portraits, the stillness of his subjects, the mastery with which he captured power. Growing up near Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery, I often found myself standing before Holbein’s pieces, drawn to their permanence and their unflinching depiction of humanity. Those early encounters formed a foundation that still guides my work today.

In Holbein’s portraits, particularly those of figures like Thomas Cromwell and Sir Thomas More, one can sense an extraordinary exactness—a solemn presence that feels both frozen in time and alive within it. His subjects meet the viewer with a directness that transcends centuries. Their expressions, subtle and controlled, hold authority without embellishment. Holbein painted with an objectivity and precision that refused to idealize. Every tiny imperfection, every texture of skin, every nuance of gaze remained intact. It is this unwavering realism that resonates so strongly with me and continues to shape my own approach behind the camera.

Eric Garcetti Portrait Sitting (Rory Lewis Photographer Los Angeles 2023)

When photographing Garcetti, I found myself returning to these influences. Though separated by nearly five hundred years, the essence of what Holbein captured—the gravity of public responsibility, the quiet force of influence, the interior weight of leadership—remains deeply relevant today. Garcetti, like Holbein’s sitters, carries a life lived in public service: years of diplomacy, governance, decision-making, and scrutiny. My goal was not to create a flattering likeness, but to reveal the truth of the subject in front of me. Real skin tones, real textures, real expression. The smallest details, the ones most photographers are tempted to smooth away, are precisely what bring a portrait to life. They reveal the person, not the pose.

Detail, in portraiture, is everything. Holbein understood this deeply, rendering his sitters with a clarity so precise that many of his paintings resemble early photographs. There is no airbrushing, no theatricality, no interference from the artist’s ego. Instead, the viewer encounters a subject as they truly were in that moment—complex, imperfect, human. This is the same standard I bring to my photographic work. In my portrait of Ambassador Garcetti, I encouraged a stillness that allowed these subtle qualities to surface. The resulting image is not designed to flatter but to reveal: a study of tone, presence, and character.

Objectivity, both for Holbein and for me, forms the moral centre of portraiture. A portrait should not distort, nor should it obscure. It should offer space for the viewer to interpret, to feel, and to understand the sitter without the noise of artistic affectation. In Garcetti’s portrait, I aimed to create that same clarity—a modern echo of a Renaissance tradition—where the sitter’s essence can be understood directly, without mediation.

Holbein’s influence endures because he captured more than likeness—he captured legacy. His portraits remain touchstones for historians, artists, and museum visitors who stand before them centuries later, still sensing the presence of the person he painted. It is this timeless quality, this capacity for a portrait to outlive both the artist and the sitter, that continues to inspire me. In photographing Ambassador Garcetti, I sought to honour that lineage: to create a portrait rooted in history yet firmly grounded in the present, shaped by realism, clarity, and a profound respect for the enduring power of the human face.