Yusuf reached out to me when he was in town for a film shoot. We managed to meet up for a short portrait session. His inspiration: a self-portrait of myself from 2018.
He and I go pretty far back, both from the martial arts tricking community. While I moved on to photography, many of our peers ended up as stuntmen or circus performers. Yusuf, with a background in martial arts, moved on to work as a stunt coordinator and performer in movies like Deadpool, Kung Fu, and The Last of Us. We rarely get to cross paths these days, so it was an honour that he was fixated on a style I designed for a portrait.
For the inspiration image, I hadn’t actually taken note of the setup, but I remember the day clearly. I spent nearly 8 hours throughout the day mucking about, working on experimenting with coloured gel setups. I had moved the lights around quite a bit that day, so remembering the final setup was a challenge.
Thus, I dug into my archives and pulled out the catalog.
I found my reference image, but I figured I would share the process. After all, I was still using my favoured Canon EOS 5D Mark II at that time, and was used to incredibly tank methods of focusing for self-portraits as I had once upon a time done Project 365, and had very few subjects other than myself to photograph.
Using a light stand to gauge where to position myself for a self-portrait
I began by using a light stand as a place holder for my focus. Then, I ran back to my camera, back-button focused onto the stand, and then flicked my lens into manual focus. Then, I set the timer to 10 seconds, hit the shutter, and did my best to position myself where the stand was.
After the shot, I’d run to the back of the camera to review.
Assess. Adjust. Rinse and repeat!
And when I’d finally lock in lighting, it was a matter of posing and nailing focus.
Missed focus (shot with an EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro at f/4)
More often than not, I’d mess up focus… but after a good amount of testing, you’ll end up with your banger. For this portrait, I remember using one of Jake Hicks’ Lightroom presets as a base at the time, something I won for winning votes in an online photo contest. But for Yusuf’s updated portrait however, I tethered a Sony A7R IV to Capture One. As both engines render and translate settings differently, I had to fine tune the values to get it as closely as possible.
When photographing Yusuf, my modifiers had changed a great deal since the original photo, but we managed to squeeze something out using 3’ and 2’ octaboxes (my main modifier of choice), barely making time before he had to rush to the airport.
Stunt performer and coordinator Yusuf Ahmed
You can find Yusuf’s most recent work in Karate Kid: Legends (2025).