Most men arrive uncertain. Howard did not. He walked in with a specific kind of energy — the energy of a man who has thought about this, decided he wants it, and is not going to waste the session talking himself out of it. That energy is a gift to a photographer.
I am extremely passionate about showing men the version of themselves they have never seen. Their strength. Their personality. The quirks and the sensitivity and the masculinity — all the different sides a man can possess. Howard had access to all of it — and he was willing to let the camera find it.
What surprised me was not the confidence. It was the depth underneath it. The moments between the poses — when he exhaled, when something crossed his face that was not performance — those were the shots I came back to. That is always where the real work lives.
What Youth Brings to the Camera
I have photographed men in their thirties, their fifties, their sixties. Each age brings something the others cannot manufacture. Clayton at 66 brought presence and certainty — decades of living compressed into a face that had nowhere left to hide.
Howard brought something different. He brought possibility. The sense that everything is still ahead — and the rare self-awareness to know that right now, today, this version of himself is worth documenting before it becomes something else.
That awareness is not common in young men. Most of them believe they have time. They will do this later, when they are more settled, more defined, more whatever they think they need to be. Howard understood something most men figure out too late: there is no better time than the one you are standing in.
"There is no better time than the one you are standing in."
The American Flag
He brought it himself. The American flag — not as a political statement, not as a costume. As a prop that meant something to him personally. Something that said: this is part of who I am right now.
That is exactly what I tell every man before a session. Bring what makes you feel like yourself — then push it a little further. Bring the thing that has personal meaning. A sport. A uniform. Something with history on it. The images that tell a story are almost always the ones built around a specific, personal detail.
The flag shot is one of my favorites from this session. The light. The confidence in his body. The way he holds it — not hiding behind it, just grounding the frame with something real. It says something.
"Bring what makes you feel like yourself — then push it a little further."
What I Want You to Take From This
Varón Portrait is not just for men at the end of something. Not just for the retirement milestone or the 60th birthday or the man who has been meaning to do this for twenty years.
It is for Howard too. The man who is in the middle of becoming something and wants a record of exactly where he is right now. The man who knows his body, knows what he wants, and is ready to see what the camera sees in him.
I am passionate about all of it. Every age. Every stage. Every version of masculinity that walks through that door. The work is different every time — and every time, it shows me something I did not expect.
Howard showed me what it looks like when a man arrives already open. Ready. No walls to break down — just the work, the light, and two people in the room making something worth keeping.
I am grateful he trusted me with it.
— Jorge
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