All Hail Ashley Longshore // INFLUENCE Magazine
All Hail Ashley Longshore // INFLUENCE Magazine
INFLUENCE Magazine assigned us to photograph a feature on art collectors in Florida's political world for their Winter 2022 issue. The story, written by Tamara Lush, profiled several collectors of artist Ashley Longshore's work, and our assignment took us to three locations across the state: Susie McKinley's home in Tallahassee, Ana Cruz's home in Tampa, and Anthony Pedicini's home in Tampa.
Photographing art in someone's home is a specific kind of editorial challenge. You're documenting a piece of artwork, but you're also telling a story about the person who collects it and the space they've chosen to display it in. The art itself is bold and colorful; Longshore's work is large-scale pop art with a lot of texture, glitter, and visual energy. Our job wasn't to reproduce the paintings; it was to photograph the collectors alongside the pieces in a way that communicated the relationship between the person and the art on their walls.
Working in private homes always requires a different approach than a studio or a public location. You're adapting to the layout, the existing light, and the finishes of each room. A painting hung in a living room with warm overhead lighting reads differently than one on a wall with natural window light, and you have to manage reflections off glass, glitter, and glossy surfaces. We used Profoto lighting at each location to give us control over how the art and the subjects were lit without creating harsh reflections on the canvases. Getting the balance right so that both the painting and the person look good in the same frame takes some finesse with modifier placement and angle.
The multi-city format meant we were managing travel between Tallahassee and Tampa alongside the scheduling of three private home visits. Each collector had their own availability window, and you're a guest in someone's home, so you need to work respectfully and efficiently. As Florida photographers, we've developed a rhythm for multi-location editorial assignments like this; you plan the logistics ahead of time so that when you arrive at each home, you can focus entirely on the photography rather than figuring out where to set up.
What we liked about this assignment is that it sits in an unexpected space for editorial photographers in Florida. Most people associate our work with political portraits and session coverage, but an assignment like this shows the range of stories that publications like INFLUENCE Magazine cover. Photographing art collectors in their homes, with the work they love on the walls behind them, is a different kind of portrait photography, and it was a fun change of pace.
This feature was photographed by The Workmans for INFLUENCE Magazine and appeared in the Winter 2022 issue and was written by Tamara Lush. The Workmans are a husband-and-wife photography team based in Tallahassee, Florida, and we work with publications across the state of Florida, in Washington D.C. and around the United States. You can explore more of our editorial photography in the archive, see more of our work across our website and connect with us on how we can best serve you!
