Meet Lenny.

I'd only just met him and within the first hour, I think we'd covered his entire life history. Wild anecdotes from his time in the Navy and Iraq. His childhood, which sounded pretty harsh. All about his ex-wife and estranged child. And a lot more I can't repeat - all delivered with lots of laughter and many, many raucous jokes.

You couldn't help but be impressed by his incredibly cheery nature in spite of everything.

But here, he has tuned out while he thinks I’m still fiddling around, setting up. The mask of bonhomie slipped away, and for a minute you could see years of pain in his eyes.

Photographing ‘real people’, you don't usually get a lot of time, so it pays to have a quick set-up. And to know your lighting intent.

I don’t always tell people when I’ve stopped setting up lights and started shooting either. It's better when they forget about the camera.

For this shot, I used a gridded beauty dish, placed above, pointing down with no fill. Lenny has a craggy face, there was no escaping that, so I went with it in the lighting.

What I hadn't expected was that the quiet side of Lenny would be so moving.