One Day in Brooklyn: A Portrait Session with Actress Isabel Arraiza

Pivoting in your career always brings a flurry of excitement, apprehension and some blind faith in yourself. I felt all of that when I jumped from full-time sales engineer to full-time photographer, and again when I moved from photographing sports to pursuing celebrity portraiture. It felt like starting over. Those small setbacks can be overwhelming, but they make the first successes feel that much better.

So when I got the call from a publicist to photograph Isabel Arraiza, it was pure elation and a real sense of progress. Isabel, a Juilliard-trained actress, was set to play one of the leading roles in the new Suits spinoff, Pearson. As a huge Suits fan, I was pumped, and getting back to New York City was a nice bonus.

The brief and the plan

I started planning as soon as I hung up. The budget was minimal, but I knew I could make it work, and I knew what a good shoot could lead to. The brief was a set of images for different uses: headshots, portraits, some casual shots and editorial images for interviews. Isabel's publicists were booking hair, makeup and styling, so my job was to find a location, get myself and my gear to New York and develop the concepts.

These days I start every shoot like this with a Pinterest board of images I like, then narrow it down into distinct image sets. I wanted to keep things simple, and thanks to my friend Paul Meyers, I had a great studio in Brooklyn. Its furniture and window light were perfect for the casual images, and I planned to rent an Oliphant backdrop for most of the rest. Paul's studio was only a couple of blocks from Oliphant, so I could walk the drop over and back on the day.

Flying with a lighting kit

Flying with all this gear, the hard part is deciding what to bring. Stands and modifiers are the heaviest and therefore most expensive to fly because they're so big. Since I had a studio, I could leave the stands at home, but I like to bring my own modifiers. I know how they behave, and I'm more effective when I'm not adjusting to small differences in someone else's.

Main carry-on: my f-stop Tilopa backpack with camera gear, computer, batteries, memory cards and backup drives. If the overhead bins are full, I can slide the insert out and put it under the seat in front of me. It's a scrunched flight, but my gear stays with me.
Second carry-on: my 69" octa case. I break the modifier down, put the speed ring in my checked bag, and carry on the rods and fabric for a couple of modifiers.
Checked: clothes, more modifiers, odds and ends like tether cables and speed rings, and my Think Tank Logistics Manager with the flash heads. Checking the heads is always a little scary, but that bag is a tank, and in nine years of flying with it I've never had a problem with TSA or broken or lost gear. (Yes, I knocked on every piece of wood nearby as I typed that.)

Flying in a day early gave me time to get my bearings and plan the travel and timing for the next day. I checked into the hotel, grabbed the essentials (pizza and bagels, because New York), and was ready.

Setting up solo

I woke up before my alarm, got a quick workout in, checked the gear and battery levels one last time and took an Uber across town. After picking up the drop at Oliphant, I was at Paul's studio well ahead of schedule, with plenty of time to set up and settle in before anyone arrived.

As the crew came in and Isabel started hair and makeup, I felt calm and confident. When I went through the amazing selection of clothing Eliza had pulled, I knew we were all on the same page.

My main source for the day was the 69" Elinchrom Rotalux Octabox. It's soft, it transitions well between setups, and I can add lights and v-flats around it quickly. I was working without an assistant (thankfully, Paul jumped in where he could), so I needed a workflow that let me focus on staying connected with Isabel.

Headshots on the Oliphant

We started in front of the Oliphant with two lights: the 69" octa as fill and a 39" Elinchrom Rotalux octa as the main, both on Profoto B1 heads, with v-flats on either side to keep stray ambient light out. Isabel started on a stool and then stood, and I moved constantly between close-ups and pulled-back frames to get as much variety as possible in a short time.

Window light and the second-setup magic

For the casual outfit, I spun the 69" octa around and used more of the studio, with window light coming in behind Isabel. By now she was getting comfortable with the still camera and my way of working, and she stepped into the frame with all the fire I could handle. The second setup is always where everybody relaxes and starts having fun. The window light made a great backdrop, and paired with the big octa, it was exactly what I'd pictured.

We liked that outfit so much that we spun back to the darker Oliphant for a few frames, then finished the set with my Heroes on White setup.

After a lunch break, touch-ups and a wardrobe change, we moved deeper into the space to another couch. Again it was a balance of window light, a white v-flat and the 69" octa, plus a little pillow maneuvering to get Isabel comfortable in the pose I had in mind. By then I barely had to give direction. She had taken over, and her confidence filled the room. That's exactly what you want. If your subject is confident in the images you're making together, you're going to capture great photos.

A black-and-white close-up

Before moving on, I wanted to try an intimate black-and-white beauty image: a tight close-up of Isabel's face with just a hint of her hands, framed by a turtleneck sweater. The lighting was everything here. With everything so close, the smallest adjustment changed the result dramatically. I switched to the Canon with the 100mm macro. It took longer than I'd like to admit to dial in, but we were well ahead of schedule, and the result was worth it. I had to make myself stop shooting even though I knew we had it.

Natural light at the window

The next set used the window as the backdrop, with the feel of someone waking up and looking out at the morning. Isabel and the team shaped the look together, and she was comfortable with the direction. I slid a white v-flat in close to her and the window for bounce and shot the whole set without any flash.

One light, dreamy and soft

We finished early again, so Isabel changed into one last outfit for an image I'd been carrying in my head, something that reminded me of a Vanity Fair shoot or something Annie Leibovitz might create: dreamy and soft-spoken but still powerful. I kept it extremely simple: the 69" octa as the only light and a v-flat opposite it for depth or fill as needed. Virginia added a little wind with her hairdryer, and this became my favorite set of the day. It was the perfect note to end on.

I'm so thankful my first experience in this kind of work was this positive. It helps to have an amazing team around you, good friends supporting you and a fun, confident subject in front of the lens.

Thank you to the team at Shelter PR for trusting me with this shoot, to Paul for helping out and letting me work in his space, and to Virginia (hair), Min Min (makeup) and Eliza (styling). The behind-the-scenes video is below. I didn't get much footage with so many moving parts, but it's a good glimpse of what it looks like to create on set with a team.

The film

Watch the behind-the-scenes film

Originally published on the Ruddock Visuals blog, August 2020. Lightly edited in 2026.