Sartorialist Behind the Scenes

Sartorialist in Stocks Mill

Senior and former Collegian photo editor William Clayton shot last issue's Sartorialist pictures at the Stocks Mill downtown in about an hour. Freshman Aaron Schepps was his model.


Clayton took this shot in an abandoned warehouse portion of the mill, he said, where a huge stack of crates provided a backdrop to Schepps. The room was dark enough to fade away from the subject he said.


For lighting in the shoot, Clayton used devices like a "beauty dish" and "shoot-through-umbrella."

Clayton said he wanted the backgrounds to make Schepps stand out, instead of distracting from him.

"I was looking for a little bit more contrasting shots," he said, "like more focused on the subject than the background. A background always being darker than the subject in the foreground just to make him pop."


Although this is a close-up, Clayton was standing about 30 feet away from Schepps for this shot, he said. He used a 70-200 mm lens.

Clayton used a Nikon D300 camera to take these pictures.

all pictures william clayton/collegian