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.
What It's Like to Have COVID-19 // INFLUENCE Magazine
The Workmans photographed an environmental portrait of Christian Minor at his Tallahassee home for INFLUENCE Magazine's Summer 2020 feature.
What It's Like to Have COVID-19 // INFLUENCE Magazine
INFLUENCE Magazine assigned us to photograph Christian Minor for a feature in their Summer 2020 issue. The story, written by Renzo Downey, was a personal account of Minor's experience during a health challenge, and the assignment took us to his home in Tallahassee for an environmental portrait session.
Photographing at someone's home for an editorial assignment always requires a different approach than working in a public space or a studio. You're in someone's personal environment, and the images need to feel authentic to who they are and where they live. The challenge is finding the spots within a home and around a property that give you the framing, depth, and light you need for a magazine-quality image while still respecting the subject's space.
This session also took place during the summer of 2020, which added logistical considerations that were new for all of us at the time. As Tallahassee photographers, we were navigating a period where the way we approached every assignment had changed. Working at a private residence meant being especially thoughtful about how we set up and how we interacted with the subject throughout the session. We adapted our workflow during that period to account for those realities while still delivering the kind of editorial photography our publication partners expected.
For the portraits themselves, we worked with our Canon mirrorless system and focused on finding compositions that placed Minor in a natural, relaxed context outside of his home. Home environments (indoor or outdoor) can be unpredictable from a lighting standpoint; you're working with whatever the architecture gives you in terms of window placement, ceiling height, and wall color, all of which affect how light behaves in the frame. As editorial photographers in Florida, we've photographed subjects in all kinds of residential settings, and the key is always to adapt quickly to the space rather than trying to force a look that doesn't belong there.
What we appreciate about assignments like this is that they require a quieter, more personal approach than a lot of our work. Not every editorial session happens at the Florida Capitol or in a studio. Sometimes the most compelling photography in Tallahassee happens at someone's home, and the job is to make that space feel as intentional and considered as any other location.
This feature was photographed by The Workmans for INFLUENCE Magazine and appeared in the Summer 2020 issue and was written by Renzo Downey. 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!
Haute Happenings: About #COVIDwear // Tallahassee Woman Magazine
Haute Happenings: About #COVIDwear // Tallahassee Woman Magazine
The feature in Tallahassee Woman Magazine
Culinary Excellence // Emerald Coast Magazine
Culinary Excellence // Emerald Coast Magazine
We teamed up with Rowland Publishing for the feature in Emerald Coast Magazine.
Chef Sylvia Gould: Memory Maker // INFLUENCE Magazine
The Workmans photographed pastry chef Sylvia Gould and her desserts at Kool Beanz Café in Midtown Tallahassee for INFLUENCE Magazine's feature on the James Beard Award-nominated chef.
Chef Sylvia Gould: Memory Maker // INFLUENCE Magazine
INFLUENCE Magazine assigned us to photograph pastry chef Sylvia Gould for a feature in their Spring 2020 issue. The story, written by Gus Corbella, profiled Gould and her work at Kool Beanz Café in Midtown Tallahassee, which is where the photoshoot took place
We combined environmental portraits in the dining room at Kool Beanz with more controlled portrait work in our make-shift studio in the back room. For the environmental piece, the goal was to photograph Gould in her working happy place, the space where her desserts come to life. Restaurant kitchens are tight, busy, and full of competing light sources, from overhead fluorescents to the warm glow of equipment. You're working around prep surfaces, service flow, and the reality that the kitchen doesn't stop for a photoshoot. As Tallahassee photographers who have worked in a number of local restaurants for editorial assignments, we've learned to move quickly and stay out of the way while still getting the frames the magazine needs.
Thankfully we were operating during non-business hours, but we still needed to navigate the tight corners and shiny surfaces.
When it came to photographing the food, our make-shift studio gave us the opposite environment: full control. We set up Profoto lighting and tethered to our MacBook Pro running Capture One so we could build the photos with intention and review them in real time. Having both settings in a single assignment is ideal for a magazine layout because the art director gets the candid, in-context images from the restaurant alongside the clean studio images, and the two styles complement each other across the spread.
Gould's desserts are visually striking subjects. Her work is known for vivid color, intricate plating, and unexpected combinations, which means the images needed to do justice to the level of detail she puts into every plate. Photographing desserts requires attention to how light interacts with different textures and surfaces; a caramelized sugar element reflects light differently than a matte ganache or a fresh berry, and getting all of those elements to read well in the same frame takes careful positioning of both the light and the lens.
What makes editorial photography like this rewarding is that you're telling the story of someone's craft through two different visual languages: the environment they work in and the work itself. Kool Beanz is a Tallahassee staple in Midtown, and Gould's presence in that kitchen is a big part of what makes it special. Our job was to let both of those things come through in the photographs without getting in the way of either one.
This feature was photographed by The Workmans for INFLUENCE Magazine and appeared in the Spring 2020 issue and was written by Gus Corbella. 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!
Seeing the Bigger Picture // Florida Cancer Specialists Magazine
Seeing the Bigger Picture // Florida Cancer Specialists Magazine
The feature in Florida Cancer Specialists Magazine
South Region Clinical Trials Research Office // Florida Cancer Specialists Magazine
South Region Clinical Trials Research Office // Florida Cancer Specialists Magazine
The feature in Florida Cancer Specialists Magazine
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?
New Prosecutor in Town // 850 Business Magazine
New Prosecutor in Town // 850 Business Magazine
Goals matter. The first of year brings out thoughts of personal and professional goals. One of my goals was to capture an image for the cover of a magazine. I didn’t have a particular subject or publication in mind, but I wanted something that would challenge me to think of “the shot” instead of the entire photoshoot. I had the opportunity to take portraits of US District Attorney Keefe and I was so excited when it became the cover of an issue of 850 Business Magazine.
Cultural Change Agents // 850 Business Magazine
Cultural Change Agents // 850 Business Magazine
We teamed up with Rowland Publishing for the feature in 850 Business Magazine.
Florida's First Family // Tallahassee Magazine
The Workmans photographed Florida's First Family at the Governor's Mansion for Tallahassee Magazine's May/June 2019 feature, capturing portraits and candid family moments.
Florida's First Family // Tallahassee Magazine
Tallahassee Magazine assigned us to photograph their First Family feature for the May/June 2019 issue, and it remains one of the most memorable editorial assignments we've done. The assignment was to capture photos of Gov. Ron DeSantis and first lady Casey DeSantis with their two young children at the Governor's Mansion for a story written by Pete Reinwald. As Tallahassee photographers, we've worked in a lot of historic spaces around the capital city, but the Governor's Mansion presented a unique combination of challenges: priceless interiors, tight security coordination, and two toddlers who had their own plans for the afternoon.
The Governor's Mansion is a photographer's dream and a photographer's puzzle at the same time. The rooms are full of rich wood, historic artifacts, and carefully curated details that previous families have added over the decades. But those same elements create tricky lighting situations. We brought Profoto lighting to give us control in the interior spaces while keeping the look natural and warm. The goal was to make the images feel relaxed and lived-in, not stiff or overly produced. When you're photographing a family with a 2-year-old and a 1-year-old, there's no such thing as a perfectly controlled frame, and that's actually what makes the pictures work.
Some of our favorite moments from the session happened on the patio, where the family gathered after the interview. The kids were exploring, grabbing oranges, doing what kids do. That's where the real personality came through. We kept our Canon lenses long enough to give the family some breathing room while staying close enough to catch the candid interactions. Editorial photography like this lives in the in-between moments; not the posed portrait, but the glance, the laugh, the toddler reaching for something she shouldn't.
Photographing inside a working governor's residence means coordinating with security teams, working within specific time windows, and being respectful of the space. As editorial photographers in Florida, we've developed a workflow for high-profile sessions in sensitive locations. You come prepared, you work efficiently, and you stay flexible when a toddler decides the session is over before you do.
This feature was photographed by The Workmans for Tallahassee Magazine and appeared in the May/June 2019 issue and was written by Pete Reinwald. 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!