Portrait Session — OBMT, Oxford Brookes, January 2025
Oxford Brookes Musical Theatre Society, January 2025. The blue-grey seamless backdrop. Twenty-plus members of the company over the course of one session, each working through a range of expressions and configurations that built, collectively, into the most comprehensive portrait archive the society had.
The session produced 117 Hero-tier images. What connected them was not the backdrop or the light but the quality of attention each subject brought to the camera — these are performers, and they know how to be looked at.
✦ HERO IMAGE · MASTER RAW CAPTURE 2025-01-25-10-51-29.cr2
“A medium close-up portrait of a Black woman with glasses and braided hair, wearing a mustard yellow ribbed sweater — Hero tier. (Oxford Brookes Musical Theatre Society | Portrait Session | January 202…”
Gary Wallage Photography · Portrait & Headshot Photography Resolution: 30.4MP High-Res RAW
INDIVIDUAL PORTRAITS — THE OPENING SEQUENCE
The individual portrait sequence was built around a consistent setup — blue-grey seamless, studio flash, 85mm — and a deliberately inconsistent approach to direction. Each subject was given the same starting position and then left to find their own register.
“Portrait of a Black woman with glasses and braided hair styled in two buns — mustard yellow knit.”
Gary Wallage Photography · Portrait & Headshot Photography Resolution: 30.4MP High-Res RAW
THE FROM-BEHIND SEQUENCE
The three-from-behind compositions were shot between the formal individual headshots as a change of visual register. The graphic quality of three subjects seen from behind against a white backdrop ends up in header images and social media covers.
