Rory Lewis

06/17/2026

Jacobo Fe Gismera at the Downtown Studio.

Some sitters arrive at the studio with a CV; Jacobo Fe Gismera arrived with a biography that reads like one of his own screenplays. A Spaniard in Los Angeles by way of UCLA, he was the youngest novelist in Spain to publish in the historical genre, putting out his peplum novel Perfectus Imperator at nineteen, the same age he began a modelling career that has since run to hundreds of publications across a dozen or more countries. His screenwriting — Ambergris, Halsted, Ace — has collected a small mountain of awards and fellowship recognitions, from the Academy Nicholl Fellowships to the Sundance Institute, and earned him an O-1 visa for extraordinary artistic ability. He writes period pieces built on exhaustive research: RAF pilots downed in the Sahara, nineteenth-century surgeons, Napoleonic campaigns. My sort of man, in other words.

Naturally, we leaned into it. For the first setup I put him in a battered leather trench, collar up, against a smoked grey canvas — equal parts Continental airman and matinee idol, which felt about right for a writer whose flagship script concerns a pilot crash-landing in 1942. The light was kept low and directional, letting the leather hold its texture and the curls catch the edge. There is a stillness to Jacobo in front of the camera that you cannot teach; years of fashion work will do that, but the gaze underneath is the writer's — watchful, slightly amused, taking notes.

For the closing frames we stripped it all back. Black crew neck, near-black ground, a single source raking across the face. It is the setup I return to again and again because it leaves the sitter nowhere to hide, and the best ones don't want to. Jacobo held it without flinching. Somewhere between Caravaggio's young men and a Cassavetes still, and I'll take that.

A pleasure of a session, and proof once more that the most interesting faces in this town often belong to the people writing the films rather than starring in them — though I suspect Jacobo intends to do both.

https://www.rorylewis.studio/rorys-jottings/jacobo-fe-gismera-at-the-downtown-studio

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Location: Los Angeles

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Some sitters arrive at the studio with a CV; Jacobo Fe Gismera arrived with a biography that reads like one of his own screenplays. A Spaniard in Los Angeles by way of UCLA , he was the youngest novelist in Spain to publish in the historical genre, putting out his peplum novel Perfectus Imperat

06/11/2026

Capturing Bao Song.

There is a particular awkwardness, and a particular pleasure, in photographing another photographer. They know exactly what you are doing. They have stood where you are standing, made the same small adjustments to a collar, watched the same flicker of self-consciousness cross a face and waited it out. You cannot hide the mechanics from them, and so you stop trying.

I met Bao earlier this year through my wife Sasha, for whom he had shot a portfolio of fashion portraits — a sharp, considered body of work that told me a good deal about him before we had properly spoken. Seeing him in person, I had the thought that visits most photographers eventually: that the man behind the camera would make a fine subject in front of one. He agreed, with the easy generosity of someone who understands the favour both ways.

We shot three registers across the sitting. The first, in a worn black denim jacket with his hair drawn back, has the quiet of a man caught mid-thought — the profile turned away, the light raking across the brow and falling off into shadow, more Ribera than fashion plate. The second, in a distressed leather coat with the collar standing, is the most direct: the eyes come round to camera and hold there, unhurried. The third I like best of all — hair loosed and falling, a plain black turtleneck, the face lit clean and frontal against a soft painterly ground. It is the most classical of the three and, I think, the truest.

Bao sat well, which is to say he stopped performing almost at once and simply let the camera have him. That is rarer than it sounds, and rarest of all in those who know the trick from the other side.

A delight, start to finish. My thanks to him — and to Sasha, who introduced us.

There is a particular awkwardness, and a particular pleasure, in photographing another photographer. They know exactly what you are doing. They have stood where you are standing, made the same small adjustments to a collar, watched the same flicker of self-consciousness cross a face and waited it ou

06/10/2026

An Olive-Wood Cross and the Studio Skull.

Most of the best things in this trade arrive sideways. I was speaking at Samy’s in Los Angeles on Godox lighting when a gentleman introduced himself after the talk and handed me a card. Edward Goldstein. He mentioned he did some modelling.

As it happened, I had a Recreating Caravaggio workshop coming up that weekend. A face like that does not walk into the room twice, so I asked whether he might sit for the class. Fortunately, he agreed.

The premise of the workshop is simple: take the principles the Old Masters discovered by candlelight and recreate them with a single light and a great deal of patience. Caravaggio trusted shadow more than illumination, and we spend the day learning to do the same.

We began with a friar — a coarse brown habit, hood raised, and an olive-wood cross held close to the chest. Edward brought a quiet gravity to the role that couldn’t have been directed.

After lunch we turned to Saint Jerome: red drapery, a worn book, a scroll, and the studio skull, which has now sat for more penitents than I can count. What interested me most was the dignity of age itself, every line and year revealed by the light rather than concealed by it.

The portraits turned out remarkably well. My thanks to Edward for his patience, to the students for their company, and to a Tuesday evening at Samy’s for introducing me to a sitter I didn’t know I was looking for.

https://www.rorylewis.studio/rorys-jottings/an-olive-wood-cross-and-the-studio-skull

05/24/2026

Ben Palacios Actors Headshots at the Downtown Los Angeles Studio.

Ben Palacios came through the Downtown Los Angeles studio last week, as part of an ongoing refresh of the actor look book — a deliberate evolution of lighting, styling and approach intended to give clients the distinction casting directors are now demanding.

Los Angeles is unforgiving terrain at present. The competition for representation, for callbacks, for the first read, has never been sharper, and a headshot that merely flatters no longer earns the second look. The frame has to argue for the actor — has to suggest a range, an interior life, a specificity of casting — before a word is spoken.

That has been the brief running through these recent sittings: to test new lighting cues, classical in temperament but contemporary in finish, and to find the register that lets each actor stand alone on a casting director's monitor. Ben was a pleasure to work with — generous on camera, considered between frames, and a natural collaborator on the small adjustments that decide whether a portrait holds or merely passes.

It was a pleasure also to have Ben's mother in the studio offering quiet support — one of the small graces that always lifts a sitting. Hair was in the hands of Andrei and makeup with Nina, both of whom brought their usual precision to the chair; the discipline they apply before the first frame is visible in every plate that follows. My wife and producer Sasha kept the day moving with characteristic ease, and the session was, by every measure, a thoroughly enjoyable one.

https://www.rorylewis.studio/rorys-jottings/ben-palacios

Team:
Photographer:
Subject:
MUA:
Hair Stylist:
Production Director:
Location: Los Angeles

Equipment:
.usa .creators

Ben Palacios came through the Downtown Los Angeles studio last week, as part of an ongoing refresh of the actor look book — a deliberate evolution of lighting, styling and approach intended to give clients the distinction casting directors are now demanding.

05/07/2026

Cinematic Headshots for Actors, CEOs, Executives & Corporate Professionals in New York.

Award-winning British photographer Rory Lewis offers cinematic New York headshots for actors, models, and professionals. Based in Midtown Manhattan, Rory creates expressive portraits that open doors in film, television, and business. Book your NYC headshot session today.

05/07/2026

Why "Pretty" Headshots Are Failing LA Actors in 2026.

If you’re submitting to breakdowns in Los Angeles right now, you already know the competition is fierce. But here is the hard truth: Casting Directors are spending an average of 1.5 seconds looking at your thumbnail before making a decision.

If your headshot just looks "nice," they are scrolling past.

For years, the LA standard was the generic, bright-and-airy "pretty" photo. It showed what you looked like on a good day, but it didn't tell a story. In 2026, the casting landscape has shifted dramatically. Networks like HBO, Apple TV+, and Netflix aren't looking for blank canvases; they are casting highly specific, grounded, and intensely authentic archetypes.

If you’re submitting to breakdowns in Los Angeles right now, you already know the competition is fierce. But here is the hard truth: Casting Directors are spending an average of 1.5 seconds looking at your thumbnail before making a decision.

05/04/2026

Five Years Late: Portraits of Babs Olusanmokun.

The Jotting

It started, as these things sometimes do, in a cinema in Liverpool.

October 25th, 2021. The Everyman. Sasha and I had gone to see Dune — Villeneuve's, the first one — and somewhere between Paul Atreides arriving on Arrakis and the inevitable sandworm, a face appeared on screen that made me lose the plot entirely. Babs Olusanmokun, playing Jamis. He's only there for a few minutes — long enough to fight, lose, and become a memory the rest of the film quietly carries forward — but I sat in the dark cataloguing him instead of following the story. The angle of the cheekbone. The line of the jaw in profile. The stillness of him. There's a particular kind of face the European portrait tradition keeps reaching for: structurally certain, quiet, the sort of face that holds a frame without working at it. Babs has one of those faces.

I left the cinema with a half-formed intention to photograph him and, like most half-formed intentions, it got buried under a working diary and three time zones.

Then in 2022 he turned up again, this time as Dr. Joseph M'Benga in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and the face hadn't moved. Same architecture, same gravity. Photographers tend to keep mental files of people they'd like to sit, and Babs's file had been sitting near the top of the cabinet for a year, gathering dust and patience in equal measure. By the time Dune: Part Two came round and Guy Ritchie cast him in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, the file was practically waving at me.

So this April, on a working trip back to London, I wrote to his agent.

He was in town. He was free. We met at the Farringdon studio on the 24th — five years almost to the week since that first evening at the Everyman.

Portraits of Babs Olusanmokun, London | Rory Lewis Portrait photographer Rory Lewis on capturing actor Babs Olusanmokun (Dune, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds) at his London studio — five years in the making.

04/28/2026

The Digital Handshake: Introducing Jake Read’s New 2026 Headshots.

In the high-stakes world of Los Angeles pilot season, your headshot isn’t just a photo—it’s your digital handshake. It’s the first thing a casting director sees before they even hear your name. This week, we’re thrilled to showcase a fresh face making waves: Jake Read.

Captured by the renowned British portraitist Rory Lewis at his Downtown LA studio, these shots are a masterclass in cinematic branding. Moving away from the "over-retouched" look of years past, these images focus on what really matters in 2026: authenticity and range.

https://www.rorylewis.studio/headshots-blog/the-digital-handshake-introducing-jake-reads-new-2026-headshots

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04/24/2026

DTLA: April & May 2026 Sessions.

While my work is held in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London, my home and craft are firmly planted in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles. This April and May, I am opening my DTLA studio for a select number of portrait commissions and professional workshops.

In a city defined by the temporary, we are focused on the permanent. Whether you are a leader defining an industry or an actor defining a character, your image should be a museum-grade legacy, not a fleeting trend.

While my work is held in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London , my home and craft are firmly planted in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles . This April and May, I am opening my DTLA studio for a select number of portrait commissions and professional workshops. In

04/24/2026

The Gold Standard: 10 Things to Expect from Your Beverly Hills Headshot Session.

In the competitive corridors of Beverly Hills and Century City, your image is more than just a photograph—it is your digital handshake and your first negotiation. Whether you are a tech founder, a trial attorney, or an award-winning actor, a headshot by Rory Lewis is designed to do more than document your appearance; it is crafted to project authority, character, and legacy.

In the competitive corridors of Beverly Hills and Century City , your image is more than just a photograph—it is your digital handshake and your first negotiation. Whether you are a tech founder, a trial attorney, or an award-winning actor, a headshot by Rory Lewis is designed to do more than d