Everything that is visible in a photograph is potentially significant and produces meaning. This is why careful composition is crucial, especially in portrait photography and coroprate headshots: only then will the people and objects depicted in the composition work as a team and contribute towards a common goal.

When Arnold Newman ironically rephrases Thomas Edison’s famous quote as ‘Portrait photography is 10% inspiration and 90% moving furniture’, he has precisely this control and concentration of meaning in mind.

It never ceases to amaze me how photography is able to unite and condense the many, sometimes contradictory facets of a personality in a single image through a carefully composed contextualisation – or simply by moving some furniture.