Black and white portrait of a young musician playing a trumpet by Richard Mayle.

Riley

The Shoot That Started It All

I’ve long been a big fan of photographers such as Richard Avedon, Platon, Martin Scholler and Mark Mann. All photograph in close proximity to their sitters and in their own way, bring something incredible to a portrait.

Having been continuously inspired by these and other photographers, I asked my daughter to grab her recently acquired trumpet and come into Studio MG (the MG standing for “messy garage”), which we have at home. I wanted to try out a new light setup, inspired by Platon and see what I could do with it.

Black and white photograph of a young musician playing the trumpet.

The result was this photograph. Taken with the widest lens I owned, a 35 mm 1.8 Nikon lens, this style and lens choice was far from my previous work, but I was hooked.

This photograph has lit a fire under me, and now I’m off to photograph musicians! As close as I can get to them and in ways they have probably not been photographed before.

Come join me for the ride!

Richard Mayle is a portrait photographer from the Bayside area of Melbourne. After nearly 20 years of photographing in colour, he has turned his gaze towards his love of black and white and the work of the masters.

To organise your own session, fill out the form on the Contact page.