The Right Person in the Frame

The ease in these photographs isn’t performed. You can feel the difference when it is—something behind the eyes, the way attention sits in the body. Effy Turner and Iona Catherine have known each other well enough for long enough that a camera between them becomes beside the point, and what’s left is just two people being somewhere together.

The shoot happened in Portland for Sticks & Stones, photographed by designer Rowan Henry, who’d found them on Instagram the day before via a friend’s tip and messaged them on a whim while he was on vacation. They said yes immediately. He showed up, let them style themselves, and shot. By his account—and the pictures confirm it—the whole thing was relaxed to the point of almost lazy, which is the best possible state for this kind of work.

The results have the texture of a long afternoon. They know how to play with a camera without performing for it—there’s a difference, and it shows. You see it in the ease, the almost deliberate lack of effort, which takes more control than most people understand.

It must be nice, honestly. Having someone to do that with. The right person in the frame makes everything easier.