When A Man Loves a Motorcycle // Tallahassee Magazine
The Workmans photographed Steve Pearce with a motorcycle on North Florida clay roads for Tallahassee Magazine's feature on his six decades of riding adventures.
When A Man Loves a Motorcycle // Tallahassee Magazine
Tallahassee Magazine assigned us to photograph Steve Pearce for a feature in their May/June 2024 "The 323" section. The story, written by Marina Brown, profiled Pearce and his six decades of motorcycle adventures, and our assignment took us out to the clay roads of North Florida for an environmental portrait session.
Photographing someone on a clay road in North Florida is about as far from a studio session as you can get, and that's what makes it fun. The location is the story. Clay roads have a texture and a color that's distinctly North Florida, and for a feature about a lifelong motorcycle rider, that setting connects the subject to the landscape in a way that a sidewalk or a parking lot never could. As Tallahassee photographers, we know these roads well, and they offer a visual character that photographs beautifully when the conditions are right.
Outdoor environmental portrait photography on unpaved roads comes with its own set of variables. The surface itself can shift in color depending on recent weather; dry clay reads differently than damp clay. The canopy cover along many of these roads creates patterns of light and shadow that change as you move down the road, and finding the right spot where the light, the background, and the composition all work together takes some scouting. We worked with our Canon mirrorless system and selected lenses that let us place Pearce and the motorcycle in the broader landscape while keeping the portrait sharp and focused.
One of the things we enjoy about assignments like this is that the subject brings their own visual energy to the session. A motorcycle is an inherently photographic object; the lines, the chrome, the mechanical details all add interest to the frame. Photographing Pearce with the bike meant finding compositions where both the person and the machine contributed to the image without one overpowering the other. The bike is part of the story, but Pearce is the subject.
Working on location in rural areas around Tallahassee is something we do regularly as editorial photographers in Florida. Not every assignment takes us to the Capitol or a downtown office. Sometimes the best photography in Tallahassee happens on a dirt road outside of town, and features like this one for Tallahassee Magazine are a reminder of how much visual variety exists in this part of the state. We appreciate the range of assignments that keep our work as Florida photographers varied and interesting.
This feature was photographed by The Workmans for Tallahassee Magazine and appeared in the May/June 2024 issue and was written by Marina Brown. 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!
Time Travels // Tallahassee Magazine
The Workmans photographed 92-year-old memoirist Ann Camp at her historic Tallahassee home for Tallahassee Magazine's feature on her life and writing.
Time Travels // Tallahassee Magazine
Tallahassee Magazine assigned us to photograph Ann Camp for a feature in their September/October 2022 "Senior Living" section. The story, written by Emma Witmer, profiled the 92-year-old memoirist and her writing process, and our assignment took us to Camp's historic home in Tallahassee for an environmental portrait session.
Photographing someone in their nineties in their own home requires a particular kind of care. You're working with a subject who may move more slowly, who may be more sensitive to bright lighting, and whose comfort in the space matters more than any creative concept you brought with you. The session needs to work around the subject, not the other way around. As Tallahassee photographers, we've photographed people across a wide range of ages for editorial assignments, and sessions with older subjects are some of the most rewarding because the images tend to carry a weight and a presence that younger subjects don't always bring to the frame.
Camp's home is a historic property in Tallahassee, and the article describes a warm living room where the interview took place. Historic homes give you rich visual material to work with: architectural details, natural light filtered through older windows, and interiors that have been shaped by decades of living. The challenge is being respectful of a space that's clearly been curated over a lifetime while still finding the compositions that work for a magazine layout. We worked with our Canon mirrorless system and chose lenses that let us frame Camp within her home environment without needing to rearrange or disrupt the space.
For the portrait work, we kept the setup minimal. Not every session benefits from bringing in a full lighting setup, and a home environment with an older subject is one of those cases where working with the available light and supplementing gently, if at all, often produces the most natural and comfortable results. The goal was images that felt like you were sitting in the room with Camp, not images that looked like a magazine crew had taken over her living room.
Environmental portrait photography like this is about patience and presence. You spend time with the subject, you let them settle into the session, and you wait for the moments where their personality comes through naturally. That's when the best frames happen. Features like this one for Tallahassee Magazine remind us that some of the most compelling photography in Tallahassee comes from simply sitting with someone and letting their story show up in the photographs.
This feature was photographed by The Workmans for Tallahassee Magazine and appeared in the September/October 2022 issue and was written by Emma Witmer. 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!
Dog's Best Friend // Tallahassee Magazine
Dog's Best Friend // Tallahassee Magazine
I (Alex) had the opportunity to spend the morning with Dr. Kevin Drygas and his family. As a father and business owner, being present with my kids is one of the most important things in the world to me. It was amazing getting to be a “fly on the wall” as Dr. Drygas put the scrubs away and exchanged it for a skateboard. He shared about their journey to Tallahassee and building a business here. He and his practice makes Tallahassee a better place for all the pet owners in out community. We were grateful for Tallahassee Magazine sharing these images!
Agonizing and Joyful // Tallahassee Magazine
The Workmans photographed author Jay Revell at Capital City Country Club in Tallahassee for this Tallahassee Magazine feature on his book, The Nine Virtues of Golf.
Agonizing and Joyful // Tallahassee Magazine
Tallahassee Magazine asked us to photograph Jay Revell for a feature in their May/June 2021 issue tied to his book, The Nine Virtues of Golf. The story, written by Steve Bornhoft, explores Revell's lifelong relationship with the game, and the assignment took us to Capital City Country Club in Tallahassee to capture portraits of Jay in the environment where so much of that relationship plays out.
Capital City Country Club is one of those locations that looks effortless in photographs but requires some thought to photograph well. The course is lined with Spanish oaks and full of rolling terrain, which gives you beautiful depth and framing options. But a golf course is also wide open, and depending on the time of day, you're managing strong directional light with very little shade to work with. As Tallahassee photographers, we've been on this course before for other assignments, so we had a sense of which spots would give us the best combination of background interest and workable light.
For an environmental portrait like this, the goal is to put the subject in a setting that tells part of their story without needing a caption. Revell on the course, with his clubs, surrounded by the landscape he writes about with so much affection; that's the photograph doing narrative work alongside the article. We brought our Canon mirrorless system and worked with a range of focal lengths to balance Revell against the scale of the course. Some frames pulled in tight on him, while others let the fairways and oaks fill the background to give the spread some variety for the magazine's layout.
What makes editorial photography like this rewarding is that the subject brings something to the table before you ever press the shutter. Revell has a connection to the game that comes through in how he carries himself on the course. Our job was to find the frames where that connection reads naturally, without overexposing or forcing a moment that wasn't there. The best environmental portraits happen when the subject feels at home, and Revell was about as at home as you can get.
This feature was photographed by The Workmans for Tallahassee Magazine and appeared in the May/June 2021 issue and was written by Steve Bornhoft. 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!
A Spirited Business // Tallahassee Magazine
The Workmans photographed Ology Brewing Company's distillery team and products at their Tallahassee facility for Tallahassee Magazine's feature on the brewery's expansion into vodka and rum.
A Spirited Business // Tallahassee Magazine
Tallahassee Magazine assigned us to photograph a feature on Ology Brewing Company for their May/June 2021 issue. The story, written by Bob Ferrante, covered Ology's expansion from craft beer and coffee into distilled spirits, and the assignment took us to their facility off Powermill Court in Tallahassee to capture photographs of the team, the distilling process, and the products themselves.
Brewery and distillery photography is one of those assignments where you're balancing people, products, and space all in the same session. Ology's facility has a lot of visual interest; there's stainless steel equipment, bottles on shelves, the distilling setup, and the taproom and beer garden that regulars already know well. The challenge is making all of those elements feel cohesive in a magazine spread rather than like a disconnected collection of detail images. You need portraits of the people behind the product, close-ups of the bottles and the process, and wider compositions that give the reader a sense of the space.
For the product photography, we used Profoto lighting to give us control over how the bottles and glassware looked. Photographing glass and liquid is tricky because you're dealing with reflections, transparency, and the way light passes through different colors of spirit. A bottle of clear vodka behaves completely differently under lights than a bottle of rum, and getting both to look good in the same visual language takes some attention to how you position and modify the light. We also photographed portraits of lead distiller Jason Grant and members of the Ology team in and around the production space, using the equipment and environment as the backdrop rather than pulling them out of context.
As Tallahassee photographers, we've watched the local craft beverage scene grow over the last several years, and Ology has been a big part of that. We've photographed their space for other assignments as well, including the 10 Places to Chill feature we did for INFLUENCE Magazine. Having that familiarity with the location and the team helps when you're working on a tight editorial timeline because you already know the layout, the light, and the spots that photograph well.
This kind of editorial photography sits at the intersection of food and beverage, portrait, and commercial work. It's one of the areas where photography in Tallahassee has a lot of room to grow, and features like this in Tallahassee Magazine help put the local scene on the map for readers across the region.
This feature was photographed by The Workmans for Tallahassee Magazine and appeared in the May/June 2021 issue and was written by Bob Ferrante. 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!
Beers at Dawn-Thirty // Tallahassee Magazine
The Workmans photographed food and beverage pairings at Madison Social in Tallahassee for Tallahassee Magazine's feature on the breakfast beer trend across North Florida.
Beers at Dawn-Thirty // Tallahassee Magazine
Tallahassee Magazine assigned us to photograph the food and drink imagery for a feature in their March/April 2021 "Gastro & Gusto" section on breakfast beers across North Florida. The story, written by Thomas J. Monigan, covered craft breweries and bars from Tallahassee to Pensacola, and our assignment was to capture food and beverage photographs at Madison Social here in Tallahassee.
Food and beverage photography is its own discipline, and it's one we really enjoy. The goal is to make the reader want to reach into the page and grab what's in front of them. With this assignment, we were working with both plated dishes and poured drinks, which means you're managing different textures, colors, and levels of detail in the same frame. A breakfast plate like chicken and waffles with syrup has warm tones and a lot of visual weight, while a beer or cocktail next to it is translucent and reflective. Getting both to look their best in the same image takes some thought about how you light and compose the frame.
Madison Social gave us a great environment to work in. Restaurant photography in Tallahassee always involves working within the realities of the space; you're fitting your setup around tables, service flow, and whatever natural light the room provides. We used Profoto lighting to give us consistent control over the food styling while keeping things moving at a pace that let the kitchen plate dishes fresh. Food photography has a short window; once something is plated, you have a few minutes before it stops looking its best, so the workflow has to be efficient.
We worked with Canon lenses that let us get in close on the details of the food while still being able to pull back for wider compositions that showed the full table setting and the drinks alongside the plates. The variety of pairings in the story gave us a chance to create images with different visual personalities. A dark stout next to a breakfast plate tells a different story than a bright citrus beer next to eggs and hollandaise, and those differences give the magazine's art director options when laying out the spread.
As Tallahassee photographers, we've worked with a number of local restaurants and bars for editorial assignments, and food photography is one of the areas where photography in Tallahassee continues to grow. There's a real food and craft beverage scene here, and publications like Tallahassee Magazine do a great job of showcasing it.
This feature was photographed by The Workmans for Tallahassee Magazine and appeared in the March/April 2021 issue and was written by Thomas J. Monigan. 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!
A Brightened Future // Tallahassee Magazine
A Brightened Future // Tallahassee Magazine
The Governors Club is an iconic staple in Downtown TLH. They’ve recently been through a large renovation, so it was great getting to photograph the space and see how they’ve honored their history while modernizing the club for Tallahassee to enjoy. Thanks to Barry for your hospitality and Tallahassee Magazine for the opportunity to capture content for this story.
The Life of Marta // Tallahassee Magazine
The Life of Marta // Tallahassee Magazine
It’s not everyday I get asked to photograph someone who doesn’t have much time to live. In the fall of last year, we partnered with Rowland Publishing on a project. I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with Marta while she was in her final weeks of life at Big Bend Hospice. She shared her story of fleeing Communist Cuba and making a new life here in the United States. Her smile lit up the room and her joy was contagious. It’s interesting how today, contagious seems like such a bad word. There are so many things that can be contagious and not necessarily in a bad way. How can we be joyful and how can that joy be contagious to those around us?
Dailey Life // Tallahassee Magazine
Dailey Life // Tallahassee Magazine
On May 2nd, 2019, I spend a little more than half a day with Tallahassee Mayor John Dailey. We meet at the Tallahassee Police Department Headquarters, for a memorial service. Then, I rode with him to the Tallahassee School of Math and Science where he read a few books and had a Fortnite Dance Competition with a class of kindergarteners. We drove the city, talking about growth, development and preservation of the history in our community. Next stop was the Leadership Tallahassee Class 36 graduation and finally to the Bond neighborhood. And that was all before 1:15pm… We partnered with Rowland Publishing to share the story of Tallahassee’s new mayor in Tallahassee Magazine.
Beacons that to us Beckon // Tallahassee Magazine
The Workmans captured aerial photographs of the historic St. Marks Lighthouse in the St. Marks Wildlife Refuge for Tallahassee Magazine's July/August 2016 feature.
Beacons that to us Beckon // Tallahassee Magazine
Tallahassee Magazine featured our aerial photography of the St. Marks Lighthouse in their July/August 2016 issue as part of their "The 323" section. The piece highlighted the historic lighthouse in the St. Marks Wildlife Refuge, and we provided images through our Aerial Tallahassee project, which explores Tallahassee and the surrounding region from above.
The St. Marks Lighthouse is one of those landmarks that most people in the area have visited at ground level, standing at the base and looking up. Our assignment was to flip that perspective entirely. Aerial photography gives you the ability to show a familiar subject in a way that changes how people think about it, and a lighthouse is a perfect candidate for that treatment. From the ground, it's a tall white structure against the sky. From above, you see its relationship to the coastline, the refuge, the water, and the landscape surrounding it in a way that's impossible to appreciate otherwise.
Photographing a lighthouse from the air in Wakulla County means dealing with coastal wind conditions, restricted airspace considerations near wildlife refuge areas, and the challenge of timing your flight to get the right light on a white structure surrounded by water. White buildings next to open water can be difficult because the reflectivity creates exposure challenges; the structure wants to blow out while the water and marshland around it go dark. Getting the balance right takes planning around the time of day and the angle of approach.
This was one of our earlier aerial editorial assignments for a Florida publication, and it's a good example of how photography in Tallahassee extends well beyond the city limits. The St. Marks Wildlife Refuge is about 25 minutes south of downtown, and it's one of the most visually rich areas in the region. As Tallahassee photographers, having the ability to offer aerial perspectives alongside traditional editorial photography gives publications like Tallahassee Magazine options that most Florida photographers in the area aren't set up to deliver. It's a different skill set and a different way of seeing a place, and we're grateful the magazine gave us the space to showcase it.
This feature was photographed by The Workmans for Tallahassee Magazine and appeared in the July/August 2016 issue and was written by the Tallahassee Magazine Editorial Team. 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!