Compelling visual artist and good friend of mine Sergio Huerta asked me to do some photos of him, for a recent new project. The basic concept was a portrait, but knowing me and him I knew it wasn't gonna just be a plain portrait. We set out with a few basic ideas and a couple of original paintings of his. After a bit of brainstorming and a few tests, we opted to use a piece called "State of Emergency". The canvas size and the ratio of the painting seem to be the perfect size. I asked him to get behind the canvas and align his head with the top of the painting. The idea worked! Now to take it a step further. Simple! Add a basic plain but interesting background to use for "negative space". The human eye tends to gravitate towards the top left corner of just about any flat surface that resembles a book or a piece of paper. So the concept here is to drag the viewers eye across the image through a texture filled brick wall and ultimately ending and resting visually on the subject.
