Featured Photographer: Douglas Sonders

It's a busy life for a man whose job is photographing expensive vehicles, famous people's portraits, rock bands, and technology for magazines. For Douglas Sonders, however, it really doesn't feel like work. Sonders, named one of Washington D.C.'s Most Influential People Under 40, indulges his passion of photography and videography and gets paid to do it daily.

Sonders got his start by helping his father work on cars of all types, and knew from the moment he picked up a camera that he would eventually combine the two passions. Sonders got his start graduating from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2006 with an Advertising Photography degree. Since then, he has amassed a titanic list of clients, among them Acura, Apple, Discovery Channel, Time Magazine, and ESPN Magazine. He has also founded 8112 studios, an award-winning video production company that handles pre-production, production and post-production needs for all of its clients.

His style has often been noted as looking very "post-processed", a label he often chides as being inaccurate, as he prefers minor retouching as opposed to extensive compositing. "A lot of my work people see and say ‘oh, this looks post-produced,' but a lot of it is really trying to get as much in camera because I was trained traditionally at [Rochester Institute]." He often uses elaborate lighting setups to override the natural lighting of a scene to create a unique feeling for his images. However, he is careful not to limit himself if the natural lighting of a situation works for the feel of the image he is trying to capture. Currently, he is shooting with the Red Scarlet camera for filmmaking and Phase One medium-format cameras for his photography.

Copyright Douglas Sonders

When Sonders isn't photographing for clients, he keeps himself busy by pursuing personal projects. One of these projects is "the Unicorn Project", in which he documents famous cars from television and film, such as the General Lee from Dukes of Hazzard. If you're interested in seeing more of Sonders' work, you can see his expanded portfolio here. Additionally, Sonders has a wealth of behind-the-scenes and how-to videos on his Vimeo page. Check them out for helpful hints on workflow, technique and the commercial photography business. Tim Kauger is a blogger and photographer based in Short Hills, NJ. You can visit his website here.