The Story Behind the Photo

April 2023: Environmental Portrait

Thomas Jefferson, byScott Eliot

During a trip to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello a Historical landmark in Albemarle County, Virginia, I found myself in a composition rich environment for photography.  

Touring the grounds I noticed a gentleman dressed in colonial fashion.  It was Veteran historical actor-interpreter Bill Barker widely recognized as the nation’s foremost interpreter of Thomas Jefferson! 

Barker began interpreting Jefferson in 1984—fittingly, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Combining the tools of theater with rigorous historical scholarship, his approach explores Jefferson’s life and times, and how it relates to our world today. Barker has performed as Jefferson around the country and around the world, at sites including the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Palace of Versailles.  As it happened I had the actor all to myself to work on my April's Environmental Portrait of course! 

My gear that day consisted of my Canon EOS R5 combined with a trusty 24 - 105 RF f/4 lens.  Settings for this mid-day shot were 1/125 sec at f/16 (I tried to get detail from front to back) ISO 320.  This 50mm shot was made in the brutal light of mid-day and was a great candidate for editing in Google's Silver Efex Pro for an attempt to portray a historical environmental portrait  Although the year of photography invention is considered to be 1839 and would have been a bit out of reach for Jefferson's time.   There were some attempts to obtain a photo image as far as 1700's so what if!  Thank you for choosing my image as the Story Behind the Photo.