In fashion and beauty, people think it’s about surface. I’ve never experienced it that way. The ritual is the structure that makes the surface honest. Ritual is what happens before the shutter.
Not superstition. Discipline. The room quiets. Breath slows. Hands do their work. Hair. Skin. Fabric. Small corrections that aren’t vanity. They’re intention.
My film-era foundation trained me to treat those minutes seriously. When frames were limited, you didn’t “try things.” You decided. You watched the light move across a cheekbone and you waited until it meant something.
That waiting is the ritual. Black and white is where the ritual becomes visible. It removes the easy seduction of color and leaves only light and shadow, tonal range, and consequence. In monochrome, there’s nowhere to hide, only presence, restraint, and the truth of the gaze.
Modern precision can make everything faster. It can also make everything disposable. I’m not interested in disposable. I want the moment when preparation turns into presence. The gaze arrives. The mask drops. The image becomes authorship.
This portrait, made for a start up client, lives in that threshold. Beauty, yes. But also control. A kind of modern devotion. The magnetism of self-expression when it isn’t performing for anyone. Style becomes a language. Not to impress. To declare.
And when a portrait carries that level of intention, it doesn’t belong in a feed for a day. It belongs in a room. Large-scale. Quiet power. A signature piece that holds presence on a statement wall.
That’s the ritual, too. To live with an image. To let it tune the air. This work lives within Ritual.
Work with David
If you’re a creative director, a marketing lead, a brand builder, an interior designer or a collector looking for work with authorship, consider this your invitation to begin the conversation.
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