For an in-depth look at the delivered image portfolio, see it here.

Who is the client?  

Jess Pettitt’s, Almost Doing Good, is her second book, and it’s also the second one I’ve photographed for her. Jess and I have worked together for several years, building a close professional and personal relationship. I’ve captured her virtual presentations, branding photos, keynote addresses, and smaller projects.

Why did she need photos?  

Jess is an expert in the diversity, inclusion, and equity space, and this book is a tool to help her secure more speaking engagements, trainings, workshops and consulting clients.

She sent me copies of Almost Doing Good to capture a series of photos to use for her book launch and beyond. After the launch, she plans to leverage the photos across her social media, website, and other key touch points in her online presence. The photos needed to be versatile for both short and long-term purposes.

How did we prepare for the session?

Given our long-standing relationship, Jess didn’t feel the need for a lot of strategic discussions—she trusted that I knew exactly what she needed - and her trust paid off.

She did, however, give me a heads-up that Almost Doing Good was packed with interesting and visually appealing design elements: repeated custom graphics, charts, illustrations, pull quotes, inset quotes, and contextual models. Honestly, when I opened the book, it felt like I hit the jackpot with the number of unique visual elements I had to work with. Often, titles I shoot are extremely straightforward - simple layout and zero visual pops - but this book was the complete opposite, saturated with opportunities.

Instead of struggling to meet the deliverable count, I had to pace myself to avoid overshooting all the different elements—it would have taken an entire day to capture everything, let alone edit and deliver them.

In terms of preferences for capturing specific text or illustrations, Jess gave me creative freedom. I told her to send me three copies of the book, allowing me to deliver a variety of cover, spine, and inside-page photos, incorporating the book itself as a background element for added branding.

As for location, I shot the session in my apartment, as I do for almost all of my book boudoir sessions. It offers a range of surfaces for the book to stand, lie flat, and lean against - and I never have to leave my place to do it!

What gear did you use?

For this session, I used my Nikon Z9 paired with a 60mm macro lens. The lighting setup was my newly purchased Lume Cube studio LED panel with barn doors, replacing my older Ikan LED. The larger face of the Lume Cube made for much softer, more controlled lighting. I also used four A-Clamps (first and second examples) to keep the books in place, especially for the inside pages. And speaking of inside pages, I used one of my folding tables as the stage as its very easy to spin and work around in my bedroom.

What challenges were faced?
How did you overcome them?

The biggest challenge was managing the high gloss on the cover. It was a pain in the ass to deal with the glare caused from both my LED panel and the natural light in my apartment. At times, I had to block the ambient light coming through the blinds with makeshift tools like placemats and gaffer tape. I also spent a lot of time adjusting my camera angles to minimize reflections and highlights. I’d either angle the light to skim across the cover or take advantage of open shade while moving the light far away in different rooms to get rid of the glare.

Another challenge was standing up the book. Though it was thick, it was difficult to stand up on certain surfaces, so I leaned it against a coffee cup to keep it in position. 

The tight binding also made it tough to shoot inside pages, but by massaging the spine and fanning out the pages, I was able to loosen things up enough to capture the key elements.

Finally, my surfaces had some wear and tear, so I needed to work around imperfections or adjust the blacks and mid-tones in post-production. Generative AI in Lightroom came in handy for removing dust and other visual distractions, speeding up the cleanup process.

how was visual variety achieved?

For a clear example of visual variety, start by looking at the COVER AND SPINE folder. Click through the images quickly and you’ll see how I move from one book to multiple books, changing setups, angles, and focal points. The subfolder is chronological, showing the progression from one setup to the next, creating visual variety throughout. You'll see how I switch between shooting spines, then focusing on covers, all in different positions.

Next, take a look at the INSIDE PAGES folder. Each element is shot from a slightly different perspective, depending on its placement within the book. I experimented with folding surrounding pages or using a second copy of the book as a background to create more layered and visually branded shots. You won’t see the same flat, overhead compositions here—there’s always a conscious effort to make each shot visually compelling, giving each frame a life of its own.

I even included a few bonus shots with both of Jess’s books together — her previous book had a high-gloss cover too, so I kept it to a minimum, but it added a nice touch to the overall portfolio.

Describe the post-production process.

Post-production for this shoot was relatively smooth. I culled over 250 photos, and spent about 90-minutes cropping, coloring, and exporting and sorting the keepers that made the final portfolio.

While most of the glare was managed in-camera, in some cases, I used Lightroom’s editing tools to further reduce highlights or clean up imperfections. What annoyed me was that I was forced to to use Photoshop for one image where I needed to correct the saggy edge of the book using the liquify tool. 

Otherwise, I stuck with Lightroom, boosting saturation in the aqua, blue, and green channels to make the colors pop, cleaning up noise from high ISO shots, and sharpening to compensate.

In total, the portfolio contains 86 images and was completed with 3 post-production passes.

at the end of the day…

After delivering the final photos, Jess reacted to the book boudoir portfolio by saying, “You create breathtaking work.” 

The next morning, she posted the entire portfolio on her Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn pages, writing a public thank-you to me while sharing the photos with her audience. 

Needless to say, she was extremely happy with the results and her team immediately got to work implementing the photos into her book launch content.