Through the Lens
I am not a photographer who waits for perfect conditions. I wade into lakes at golden hour. I light friends with whatever gels I have on hand. I show up to festivals with a camera and come home with a moment nobody else caught.
Every image in this collection started with a person, a vision, and a willingness to figure out the rest on the way. No formal sets. No professional models. Just creative people who trusted each other enough to try something — and a photographer who knew how to bring out what the camera needed to see.
Hunter’s Jewelry Center
Concept. Location. Direction. Delivery.
When Hunter’s Jewelry Repair needed imagery to showcase a bracelet and necklace collection, I didn’t think studio. I thought water.
I recruited a friend, sourced the jewelry, packed a set of flashes, and headed to a local lake at golden hour. We waded in together. I directed her through poses, guided by instinct and a working knowledge of what makes a subject look commanding in front of a lens. She delivered. The water delivered. The light delivered.
The resulting images ran in print advertising for the store — jewelry photography that led with beauty, environment, and presence rather than a white backdrop and a price tag.
Vampires. But Make It Fashion.
A friend. A vintage lace dress. A forest. And a simple creative brief that wrote itself.
Two locations. One character. All natural light — because these vampires don’t burn in the sun.
Emily Dluge
A bag of rhinestones. A concept. And a willing subject who delivered everything the camera asked for.
The idea was simple: rhinestones as lip color, matched to a base underneath, lit to catch the light on every individual stone. Everything else — the feathers, the netting, the gloves, the character — grew from there. What began as a focused creative experiment became a full portrait session, working Emily through four completely different framings until the character was fully realized.
Four frames. One character. Built from scratch in an afternoon.
Family Portraits
Everyone in the family gets the full treatment.
Whether the subject has two legs or four, the approach is the same — find the light, find the personality, and make them look like they belong on a magazine cover.
Controlled Light
Four images. Four concepts. One through line.
Every photograph in this set begins with the same question: what does this light do to this person in this moment?
A recording artist preparing for his album release becomes a seer holding fire in his hands — an image that could live equally on a concert flyer or an album cover. A friend with boxing gloves becomes a split-second of pure physics caught mid-strike. Another friend becomes The Lynx — a predator lit from below, dangerous and still. The same friend becomes The Lothario — bathed in simulated moonlight, gazing into a romance only he can see.
Different days. Different people. Different stories. The same commitment to using light as the primary language of the image.
African World Festival — Hart Plaza, Detroit
Some moments don’t wait for you to get ready.
The drummers had finished their set. The dancers had taken their bows. And then the stilt walker came around the corner.
What happened next wasn’t planned by anyone. The drummer kept playing. The performer kept moving. One stilt in the air, shimmying in time to a rhythm neither of them had rehearsed together. The crowd felt it. The children felt it. The whole plaza felt it.
Behind it all — the Renaissance Center, GM’s world headquarters, standing watch over a Detroit that was fully, joyfully alive.
This is what it looks like when Detroit shows up for itself.
Stereo Junkies — Detroit
Official Photographer
Every crew needs someone behind the lens who understands the energy they’re putting into the world. For Stereo Junkies, a Detroit hip hop dance crew, that was me.
Justin Antonio owns the red background — Detroit D cap worn like a crown, snapback tilted just right, intensity dialed all the way up.
Sean Carbs takes the purple background, shows up in a Donatello graphic hoodie, and then frames the camera with his own hands like he’s the one deciding what gets shot.
He wasn’t wrong.
The colored backgrounds you see aren’t backdrops — they’re a single gel-lit light and a spray bottle of water misted into the air by a second person standing just out of frame.
Justin Antonio has since gone on to a career as a professional dancer and choreographer.
