Photo shoots

 WOMEN IN BUSINESS Editorial Portrait Series · Nashville Lifestyles

Role: Art Director
Photography: Editorial photographer, Nathan Zucker
Subjects: 17 Nashville business leaders
Production: Two-day portrait shoot

Creative Direction:  Create a cohesive portrait series for Nashville Lifestyles’ Women in Business feature that feels polished, contemporary, and editorial while allowing each subject’s personality to come through. Because the portraits would appear together as part of a single feature, consistency across the series was a priority. The visual treatment needed to work equally well across a diverse group of women and maintain a strong editorial identity from one portrait to the next.

Visual Approach

Environment: A soft, cool-toned gray/blue-gray backdrop to create a clean, sophisticated environment and provide consistency across the series.

Composition: Capture a combination of full-body portraits, head-and-shoulders portraits, and vertical compositions suitable for the feature layout. The goal was to establish consistent framing while allowing enough flexibility for individual subjects and natural variations in pose.

Lighting & Mood: Soft, flattering light with a clean editorial quality. The overall mood should feel confident, approachable, and sophisticated rather than overly corporate or formal.

Posing: Direct subjects toward natural, confident poses appropriate to their individual personalities. Avoid overly rigid corporate headshot conventions while maintaining consistency across the series.

Art Direction on Set

I was present throughout the two-day shoot to maintain the visual direction and consistency of the series. On set, I directed and monitored:

• Framing and composition
• Full-body and head-and-shoulders coverage
• Posing and body language
• Wardrobe presentation and wrinkles
• Hair and other distracting details
• Consistency of the background and overall visual treatment
• Additional variations needed for the final editorial layout

The goal was to ensure that each subject had strong individual portraits while the complete set still felt like one cohesive photographic series.

Production: The assignment required coordinating 17 subjects across two days of photography, making scheduling and efficient turnover key parts of the production.

The creative direction provided the photographer with a consistent visual framework while allowing the shoot to move efficiently between subjects and adapt to individual needs.

Intended Editorial Use: The resulting portraits were designed to function as a cohesive visual package within the Women in Business feature, with enough variation in scale and composition to support the editorial layout while maintaining a unified photographic identity.

Creative Goal:  Create a portrait series that feels unified enough to belong to one editorial package, but individual enough that every woman feels seen.