Lionesque: A journey into expression

Ever since I discovered Stephen in January of 2008, he has immediately earned a special place in front of my lens. First and foremost Stephen is very open minded, he trust my ideas, and even though he travels almost 7 hours for a session he is always ON TIME. But as time passed I wanted something more from Stephen, something that would utilize his amazingly strong and masculine facial features. As I looked over the attempts by another photographer and myself, I realized that we had not really pulled Stephen out of his shell. So for me I felt like it was now or never. So when Stephen opened a bag of cloths he had brought on his trip, I immediately spotted the hat the hat that inspired the concept which I named Lionesque.

For all who do not know -esque is a french suffix which basically means: resembling.

My whole thought behind the concept was to simply get Stephen to show some expression for once. Overall the marriage of the hats mane, and Stephen's strong feline like bone structure inspired the concept.



- J