Jonathan Thorpe uses lighting to tell (just a portion of) the story with his Tamron SP 24-70mm VC, SP 35mm VC, and SP 85mm VC lenses.

By Jenn Gidman
Images by Jonathan Thorpe

Jonathan Thorpe is known for environmental portraits that use hyperrealistic lighting, often with a sense of humor and always with a trained eye on how best to tell the story behind his subjects. His approach to cinematic portraiture is just as carefully crafted—except rather than telling the entire story in one image, he chooses to depict one particular moment that leaves the viewer guessing what happens next. "I'm literally trying to make it look like a still from a movie," he explains. "It's taking a subject or a scene, adjusting the lighting to fit the mood, and offering that one piece of the story that gets the viewers' imaginations going. It doesn't simply document what's in front of my camera. I guess you could say it's the exact opposite of photojournalism."

The Tamron SP 24-70mm VC lens remains a key player in Jonathan's arsenal, but it's now been joined by the new SP 35mm VC and SP 85mm VC primes—two fixed-focal-length lenses with superior optics and close focusing capability that have proven to be a perfect addition for his style of photography. "I've waited for prime lenses with an F/1.8 aperture for a very long time," he says. "And I had already discovered when I was shooting with the 24-70 that I tended to either shoot between 24mm and 40mm, or all the way at 70mm—nothing in between. So the 35mm and 85mm fit my needs completely. They've both been fantastic in helping me pull this style off."

Read on to see how Jonathan recently used his three favorite lenses to create still photos that could have been taken from a Roman Holiday-type rom-com, a murder-mystery, and even a late-night horror flick.

Photo 1
For a fashion spread I put together for a hairstylist, we used an antique, vintage wardrobe, including a skirt with a little eyepiece attached to the skirt. The model was able to take it off the skirt and hold it up to her eye, which gave the image an almost mysterious look. The woman in the picture is a full-time model, so she knew exactly what to do with that monocle and was right on point.

We dyed her hair different colors, though it was subtle. It's actually not the first thing you see when you look at the picture, but that's what makes it so cool—you get to uncover more layers the longer you stare at the image. I used a beauty dish on her left, and a bare-bulb strobe in back of her right ear. That glow you see in the bokeh is a chandelier that was in the back of the room.

Tamron 24-70 at 70mm, F/2.8, 1/60th sec., ISO 100

Photo 2
Every year, I do a Halloween-themed shoot. For last year's, I wanted to get a B-movie, late-night feel to the photo. I went for the classic "couple at Makeout Point" storyline, where they're attacked by a guy with a hook for a hand. The actor who played the guy with the hook was a method actor, so he literally was walking around the set breathing creepily and acting like a maniac. For the behind-the-scenes video we took of the shoot, you can see how many times the girl had to run out of the car screaming until I got the photo I wanted. I felt bad, because she had no voice the next day.

We had the car's headlights on, and I placed a strobe way out in front of the car and streaming back in (you can see a little bit of the highlight in the model's hair). I also had a giant light directly above the car, as well as a light hitting the guys from the viewer's left. I used a giant 8-foot umbrella as a base light for the entire scene. To top it all off, I had a fog machine going, because in every horror movie that takes place at night, there always seems to be fog. That usually means something bad's about to happen.

Tamron 35mm, F/6.3, 1/20th sec., ISO 1250

Photo 3
I had placed an ad on Facebook looking for a farmer to photograph, and someone knew this horse farmer who lives about 40 minutes south of me. His horse farm works with autistic kids and he's lived there his whole life, so he has such a great story to tell. Plus it helps that he was a Civil War re-enactor for a long time, so he has a bit of the acting bug in him.

For the first part of the shoot, when we were in his barn, it was really sunny outside. But I wasn't getting quite the photo I wanted. Then, out of nowhere, we heard reports of a blizzard about to hit. I ran outside before it started snowing and captured this dramatic, moody portrait, right before it began snowing like crazy. I had two lights on him: a backlight hitting his back shoulder and ear, and then a softlighter umbrella on his face. He had such a terrific expressiveness about him—you could almost see his whole story on his face.

Tamron 35mm, F/3.5, 1/2000th sec., ISO 50

Photo 4
I was teaching a lighting workshop a few months ago where I was showing my students how to tell a story by creating a mood through lighting. What I did was have a makeup artist create the look for my model without clueing me in as to how she'd look. Then, when the model came out, I'd have 20 minutes to create a mood for the photo in front of the class by getting creative with my lighting.

When she came out and I saw all of those black roses, including in her hair, I knew I wanted to keep the tones really cold and the lighting subtle and not too sharp. I lit her face with another softlighter umbrella, but this time I put a couple of pieces of diffusion fabric on the front. I also had a little light hitting the back of her hair so you could see a bit of the detail in the roses. All together, it created the sad, lonely mood I was looking for.

Tamron 24-70mm at 61mm, F/5.6, 1/125th sec., ISO 160

Photo 5
I was in Las Vegas as a Tamron speaker at WPPI in March. While I was there, I decided to take a couple of extra days for some shooting of my own. This woman was modeling at the show and I asked her if she wanted to do some side shoots. She was game, so we walked down Fremont Street in "old" Las Vegas, looking for something interesting to use for our scene.

Then we spotted this old Nissan underneath a lit-up carport. It was perfect. I had one speedlight coming in from behind her, then another umbrella in front of her to light her face, plus the lights coming down from the carport. This is the cool part of cinematic portraiture: This "moment" tells enough of the story where you're kind of familiar with the scene, but you're not quite sure what's going on or what’s going to happen next.

Tamron 35mm, F/2.2, 1/30th sec., ISO 125

Photo 6
Two friends of mine wanted an engagement photo, which I don't usually do, but they're my friends, and I figured I'd like to have an engagement photo for my portfolio. They're both really into motorcycles and scooters, as am I, so we figured it would be fun to find a scene in DC that looked like old Italy and incorporate their scooter into the photo.

We walked around for a long time until we found this alley with lots of stone and archways everywhere. I lit this with a softbox in front of the scooter, while another light was directed toward them from way down the alley. We had such a great time shooting this, and the photo shows it. The scooter manufacturer actually ended up seeing this photo, and now they're using it in one of their ads, which my buddy was excited about.

Tamron 85mm, F/1.8, 1/250th sec., ISO 50

Photo 7
My motorcycle club was being featured in Washingtonian magazine, but we didn't have a photo of our shop, so they asked me to take one. Because the room we were shooting in was pretty much pitch-black, except for the chandelier in the back, I had to create all of the lighting in the room. At the same time, I didn't want to go overboard. I'm definitely into hyperrealistic lighting, but when I'm doing a cinematic or environmental portrait like this, it's important to light the photo according to the mood I'm trying to convey.

If this particular shot had looked super-lit, it wouldn't have matched the feel I wanted. So I used five lights total: At the very back of the room I had a light hitting the far back wall. To the left and right of both motorcycles, I positioned a speedlight to light the sides of the bikes. I then had another light directly behind the two guys coming straight toward the camera; if you look closely, you can see their shadows moving toward the camera. Finally, I had another light coming from above and hitting their faces. It's well-lit, but I kept that understated mood you get when you look at these old bikes and these guys, ready to hop on and ride into the sunset.

Tamron 35mm, F/2.8, 1/160th sec., ISO 160

To see more of Jonathan Thorpe's work, go to www.jthorpephoto.com.