A Smoker

Some portraits are not posed; they happen between moments, in that thin sliver of time when the subject is simply being. This was one of those. The woman — cigarette in hand, wrist adorned with metallic bangles catching stray light — had the stillness of someone lost in thought. The background was unremarkable, and that suited me: no distractions, no narrative clutter, just her profile against a soft blur.

The shot was taken in available light, which was far from ideal. The conditions pushed me to raise the ISO more than I’d have liked, and as a result, the image carries a touch more grain than a studio portraitist would tolerate. But I’ve never been afraid of a bit of texture; here, it adds a subtle grit that plays well against the elegance of her posture.

Compositionally, I leaned into the vertical frame, letting her profile sit just forward of centre to allow breathing space towards the left — the direction of her gaze and the smoke’s imagined drift. The brightly coloured lanyard breaks the otherwise muted palette, adding a modern, almost corporate note to an image that could otherwise feel timeless.

Focus is sharp where it needs to be — her face and the hand holding the cigarette — while the shallow depth of field lets the rest fall away. It’s not a glamorous photograph in the fashion sense, but it is a candid portrait of presence. Sometimes, elegance is nothing more than the way someone inhabits a pause.