John Boal Photography

I recently received an email request from New York Magazine regarding a portrait I took of Dan Backer.  It was a little surprising, if only because the picture they were thinking of was one I did of Dan 4 years ago.  He and his wife are personal friends of ours.  In 2011, I was a staff photographer at the News & Messenger and working on getting better at portraits and specifically business-style portraits.  So we agreed to meet up.  He needed professional portraits, I needed to practice, so we met up and spent a little time doing some portraits.  He's still using those portraits.  Which is how NYMag found me. Shot in Dan's apartment, 2011.  NYMag eventually selected this one for their article. 2011 I contacted Dan and we met up quickly on a Saturday morning before one of his meetings and we did a little refresher session.  NYMag ended up going with the one I did 4 years ago, but that's ok.  I have more portraits.  An...

I had the distinct honor of photographing Jessica and Patrick for The Boston Globe in December for a story that ran in late January (see the story here) , who happened to be victims of the Boston Marathon bombing.  Both had lost their left legs as they watched the marathon.  Jessica, at the time of the assignment, had been considering amputating her right foot, due to the pain and continued rehabilitation/recovery.  Ran with story, here .  Initially, the idea was that I would accompany her on a visit to the doctors and therapists at Walter Reed.  When that idea fell through (permissions, especially when it's close to the holidays are especially difficult to come by).  So the best we could do was meet in front of the NIH metro stop and shoot for about 30 mins.  The initial story (a year after the bombings) is here , and you should read this one and the one that ran in January, because Eric did a great job following this story over the...