Boston Portrait Photographer
by David Degner
David Degner is a Boston portrait photographer who also photographs in New York City. He visually introduces his audience to the story's protagonists.
Some portrait photographers impose their style on the subject, but I aim to be open and let the subject and the story determine the style. At times, my portraits are carefully crafted with specific backdrops, lighting, and poses; at other times, they capture candid moments, as the subject has learned to trust me and share more of who they are. That trust is not incidental, it's the work itself. I spent nearly a decade as a photojournalist in Cairo and across the Middle East, and the most important thing
I learned there had nothing to do with light or exposure. It was how to make someone feel at ease in front of a camera when they have every reason not to be. A CEO in a boardroom and a researcher in a lab coat share more anxiety about being photographed than they'd probably admit. My job, before any frame is made, is to dissolve that.
The result is a portrait practice that moves across a wide range: environmental portraits on location in factories, laboratories, and offices; editorial portraits for national magazines; executive headshots for corporate communications; and personal projects where the frame belongs to the subject more than the publication. Across all of it, I resist the single signature look. A portrait of a materials scientist should feel different from a portrait of a novelist, even if both happen in available light. The subject's world, their tools, their posture, their relationship to space, has more authority than any aesthetic I could bring to the room.
The photojournalism background shapes how I move through a space. In documentary work you can't stop time, you learn to read a room fast and position yourself where something is likely to happen. That habit carries over. I'm always watching the edges of a session, the moment someone looks away, or laughs at something I said, or forgets for a second that we're making a picture. Those are often the frames that end up mattering. What stays consistent is the attention I bring to the moment just before and just after the obvious shot. The image that earns the most trust is rarely the one taken when someone is ready. I've found that clients who were skeptical about having their portrait made often become the ones who are most satisfied with the results, because the skepticism itself forces a more honest process on both of us.
Some portrait photographers impose their style on the subject, but I aim to be open and let the subject and the story determine the style. At times, my portraits are carefully crafted with specific backdrops, lighting, and poses; at other times, they capture candid moments, as the subject has learned to trust me and share more of who they are. That trust is not incidental, it's the work itself. I spent nearly a decade as a photojournalist in Cairo and across the Middle East, and the most important thing
I learned there had nothing to do with light or exposure. It was how to make someone feel at ease in front of a camera when they have every reason not to be. A CEO in a boardroom and a researcher in a lab coat share more anxiety about being photographed than they'd probably admit. My job, before any frame is made, is to dissolve that.
The result is a portrait practice that moves across a wide range: environmental portraits on location in factories, laboratories, and offices; editorial portraits for national magazines; executive headshots for corporate communications; and personal projects where the frame belongs to the subject more than the publication. Across all of it, I resist the single signature look. A portrait of a materials scientist should feel different from a portrait of a novelist, even if both happen in available light. The subject's world, their tools, their posture, their relationship to space, has more authority than any aesthetic I could bring to the room.
The photojournalism background shapes how I move through a space. In documentary work you can't stop time, you learn to read a room fast and position yourself where something is likely to happen. That habit carries over. I'm always watching the edges of a session, the moment someone looks away, or laughs at something I said, or forgets for a second that we're making a picture. Those are often the frames that end up mattering. What stays consistent is the attention I bring to the moment just before and just after the obvious shot. The image that earns the most trust is rarely the one taken when someone is ready. I've found that clients who were skeptical about having their portrait made often become the ones who are most satisfied with the results, because the skepticism itself forces a more honest process on both of us.
Book Information
Publisher:
Self Published