J HEROUN

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

—Leonardo da Vinci

Exquisite Synthesis: The world’s most enduring and influential portrait ever.*

I create stylish, distinctive portraits for fascinating individuals, professionals, and families who value authenticity and visual storytelling.

Blessed with a rich creative background spanning decades, I bring the eye of a magazine creative director and the sensibility of a fine artist to every session. My training includes esteemed institutions such as the New York Academy of Art, the Art Students League of New York, the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Northeastern University in Boston, and the International Center of Photography of New York.

As a former creative director, designer, writer, and editor for publications including New York Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Sportswear International, Shape, Men’s Health, and Boston Magazine, I’ve honed an editorial style that’s refined, modern, and intentional — perfectly suited to portraits that go beyond the ordinary.

Whether in-studio or on location, I welcome collaboration and encourage creative input, especially for clients with unique ideas for personal projects. My goal is to make your portrait session as enjoyable as it is rewarding — with images and service that exceed your expectations.

Origin Story: Examples, above and below, of my early illustration work based on photographic reference interpreted in airbrush, pastels, charcoal, and other mediums. The work demonstrates a lifelong affinity with the fusion of fashion and pop culture.

Cover Girl: Conceiving and directing celebrity cover features were among the highlights of my extensive career in magazines. Click here for a comprehensive look at celebrity and fitness photography for America’s largest lifestyle and wellness women’s magazine.

*Exquisite Synthesis

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Beyond the Likeness: Rethinking the Mona Lisa as Allegory

Despite popular belief, The Mona Lisa was likely never intended as a straightforward portrait of a real sitter. This common misconception may stem from the painting’s composition and the subject’s poised, self-contained demeanor — features that align more closely with modern ideal of portraiture than with the visual language of the Renaissance.

One key clue lies in Leonardo da Vinci’s well-known working habits and scattered attention. As a painter, he was famously deliberate — often taking years, if not decades, to complete a single piece. That alone casts doubt on the idea of a commissioned likeness; it seems unlikely that a patron would wait endlessly for a routine portrait. More importantly, the great works of the era, whether sculpture like Michelangelo’s David or paintings by Raphael and Caravaggio, were driven by a deep understanding of anatomy. That knowledge informed the musculature and movement that animated their human figures — rendering them not as static subjects, but as dynamic, living forms. This obviated the need for a sitter to complete.

Leonardo, with his endlessly curious mind, likely approached The Mona Lisa not as a simple likeness of a woman, but as an ideal. The painting reads less like a record of a person than an allegory — perhaps even a symbolic meditation on feminine grace, wisdom, or serenity. This interpretation is supported by recurring features in Leonardo’s oeuvre: the figures in The Virgin and Child with St. Anne, for example, resemble one another so closely — as well as The Mona Lisa — that they seem to be variations on a single archetype drawn from the artist’s imagination rather than from life.

Understanding The Mona Lisa as a composite, or an idealized construct, does not lessen its significance. If anything, it deepens our appreciation. It invites us to see the painting not as a passive reflection of reality, but as an active expression of Leonardo’s philosophical and artistic vision.

Viewed through a contemporary lens, this perspective resonates powerfully with the practice of photography. One can only imagine what the great Renaissance minds — who rediscovered the rules of perspective, pioneered humanism, and devised the camera obscura — might have done with modern cameras. In their hands, the camera would have been more than a tool for documentation; it would have become a new instrument for storytelling, symbolism, and exploration of the human condition. Much like The Mona Lisa, it would have been used to craft meaning as much as to capture likeness. —JH