Portraits from the world of higher ed

Here are a couple recent portraits shot at UCLA for separate stories for one of my favorite clients, The Chronicle of Higher Education. One of the best things about working with this publication is that I’m usually guaranteed to meet fascinating people in the top of their field and whom you might not normally hear of if you work outside of academia. On assignment, I have met a world class physicist leading the way on stem cell research, an environmental health expert whose research will influence planning of the cities of the future, a computer scientist making possible the ultra-realistic animations we now see in virtually all blockbuster action movies and many others. They are hardly ever household names and certainly not famous. They’re the ones behind the scenes — the guy behind the guy — whose work shapes modern society, which makes photographing them just as exciting and rewarding as shooting the famous faces of the day.