Vertigo

This portrait is part of a studio series shot with Marie Grippon (@mariegrippon), continuing my work on minimalist black and white portraiture.
The lighting setup uses a deep parabolic softbox as the main light source, positioned slightly above eye level, sculpting the face and shoulders with a softness that edges toward chiaroscuro without ever hardening the transitions. It's a light that flatters the skin while still letting the shadows breathe — a balance I'm always chasing, somewhere between Newton's rigor and Lindbergh's tenderness.
The structured bustier, with its stiff panels escaping off the shoulders, introduces a graphic break into an otherwise stripped-down composition: neutral background, simple pose, gaze cast away from the lens. That tension between the rigidity of the garment and the fluidity of the pose is what drew me to this frame.
Retouching was done entirely by hand in Photoshop — classic dodge and burn, no AI-assisted retouching tool involved.
Technical specs:
Sony A7 IV, 90mm, f/5.6, ISO 100, deep parabolic softbox, post-processing in Capture One + Photoshop.