Ten Portraits, One Shoot Day: Behind the Scenes of nFocus Magazine's Model Behavior 2026
NFOCUS MAGAZINE · MODEL BEHAVIOR 2026 · FAIRLANE HOTEL, NASHVILLE
Every year, nFocus magazine sets out to honor ten Nashville women whose leadership shows up as service. The 2026 Model Behavior feature celebrates women who serve on boards, chair fundraisers, mentor the next generation, and show up for their causes again and again, supporting everything from land conservation to pediatric cancer research and public education.
Photographing this group meant finding ten different portraits that each felt true to the woman in front of my camera, all squeezed into a single day at the Fairlane Hotel. That meant ten wardrobe changes, amazing hair and makeup artists, and working with one very patient hotel staff.
Editorial Photography Behind the Scenes: Quick Summary
Go behind the scenes of an editorial portrait shoot in Nashville with ten local honorees, five lighting deep dives, and one location. As the photographer behind nFocus Magazine's 2026 Model Behavior feature, Tausha Dickinson shares how to design custom lighting setups on location, handle real-time pivots at the Fairlane Hotel, and keep a fast-paced magazine shoot running smoothly.
Why the Fairlane Hotel Works for Editorial Photography in Nashville
The Fairlane gave us something I love about editorial shoots: visual variety without ever loading the van to change locations.
Rooftop Bar: Features a massive, as of publishing, colorful citrus mural that became our very first backdrop of the day.
Stained Glass and Travertine: A stained glass wall gives you a rainbow of colors, a beautifully designed lobby with gorgeous natural light.
Corridors, Paneling and Brass: A wood-paneled corridor, a concrete wall, a brass lined bar top.
Character: Striped wallpaper, a vintage photo booth, and shifting natural light keep any photographer on their toes.
That variety is exactly why the Fairlane works so well for editorial photography in Nashville: every honoree got a space that matched who she is, without us ever leaving the building.
How I Approached Ten Women, One Shoot Day
Before shoot day, our set stylist Bruce Pittman had already pulled and prepared wardrobe for each of the ten honorees. My assistant Anthony and I arrived early to walk the Fairlane, scout light in every room, and start matching subjects to spaces before anyone sat in a hair and makeup chair. That early walkthrough is where the real planning happens. We test the lighting, work out technical quirks, and aim to be camera-ready well before the first subject walks out.
From there, the day runs on staggered call times so the shoot moves efficiently without ever feeling rushed. Our hair and makeup team from Nashville Luxury Bridal kept the day on schedule, Bruce and his stylist assistants Linnea Tweedy and Javanna Wood handled every wardrobe change, and Anthony was on double duty, assisting and capturing behind-the-scenes footage of each setup as we worked.
Five Lighting Setups, Five Real Shoot-Day Stories
Five of these portraits called for our deepest technical problem-solving, so here is a closer look at each one: what we saw in the space, what was not working, and how we lit our way to the final shot.
Ciona Rouse | OZ Arts Nashville (Cover Feature)
Ciona Rouse, a poet and educator, has been part of OZ Arts Nashville since its 2013 debut, where she performs, mentors creative writing fellows, and champions fundraisers like Conversations at OZ.
And now, she is a cover model too!
On-Set Notes: This was our very first shot of the day, and the second we saw the citrus mural on the rooftop bar, we knew Ciona's outfit was made for this wall. Getting there took some manual labor. The space was full of furniture, and once we started test shooting, the flooring was not reading the way we wanted. So we cleared out a cluster of couches, stole the rug from underneath one of them, and moved it under Ciona instead. A few low-hanging light fixtures also tried to creep into frame, so someone had to climb on a chair to negotiate their removal before we could shoot. All worth it. Once Ciona stepped into the spot, she brought so much energy that this frame became the cover.
Lighting Setup: The instinct with a background this loud is to light it hard so it shows up. I did the opposite. Soft, even light from one large umbrella on Ciona let the mural's color do the work instead of competing with her for attention.
Wardrobe: Lafayette 148 iris Cady gown (Gus Mayer); Nickho Rey flat block earrings (Gus Mayer).
Caroline Cook | The Next Door Recovery
Caroline Cook serves on the board of The Next Door Recovery and chairs its development committee. Alongside her mother, she also teaches Sketch and Pray, an art class for women in recovery.
On-Set Notes: We had a spot picked out and fully set up before Caroline arrived, but once I got the lighting dialed in and started shooting test frames, it just was not working. So we pivoted. We moved her to a much darker corner of the space, which meant building a brand new lighting setup on the fly. Caroline was such a good sport through all of it, laughing her way through what was essentially a live lighting redesign. It turned into one of the most fun portraits of the day. That is the job: you plan as much as you can, and then you pivot when the room tells you to, ideally before your subject notices you are improvising.
Lighting Setup: We set up a key light on her from the front, added a reflector to kick light back onto her so she would not go too shadowed, and bounced a third light off the white ceiling to keep the background from disappearing into black.
Wardrobe: Oscar de la Renta button-side sweater and palm print skirt (Gus Mayer); Patricia Marie Fine Jewelry.
Christiane Buggs | PENCIL
Christiane Buggs is president and CEO of PENCIL, which directed $3 million in school supplies to Metro Nashville Public Schools students in 2025. She is also proof that a single red couch can do a lot of heavy lifting in a photo, once you fight the reflections into submission.
On-Set Notes: We wanted at least one seated, half-body portrait in the mix, and the moment we saw this red couch, we knew it was the spot. This ended up being the frame nFocus chose for the feature, though a few tighter shots we captured that day are personal favorites. One window pane next to her was transparent while the other was opaque, creating weird reflections we had to dodge. We re-angled the setup several times until the reflections cleared. In post-production, I warmed the couch tone slightly, since it was reading more orange than the rich red it needed to be.
Lighting Setup: Lighting her from the front was straightforward. The real challenge was the background. Left alone, the space behind Christiane and the surrounding plants would fall almost black, which turns a colorful room into a moody setting nobody asked for. We ran a light through a second window just out of frame to bring that background exposure back up without disturbing her main light.
Wardrobe: Teri Jon by Rickie Freeman floral dress (Gus Mayer); Patricia Marie Fine Jewelry.
Jennifer Biefel | Nashville PBS
Jennifer Biefel is board chair of Nashville PBS, where she has guided the station through its first three-year strategic plan. She also happened to be wearing the one dress out of ten built to go head-to-head with a wall of stained glass, and it won.
On-Set Notes: We originally planned a different backdrop for Jennifer, but test shots with my crew proved it just was not it. I loved the stained glass wall from the moment we saw it, and knowing her dress was a black and white polka dot, we knew she would pop. A rogue potted plant sitting on the floor was ruining the vibe, so we evicted it from the frame. I had Jennifer walk toward my from the wood wall and keep walking through the frame several times until we captured real movement and energy.
Lighting Setup: Even with strong natural light coming through the windows, the colored glass panels behind her were reading dark. The goal was to supplement the room, not overpower it. An umbrella gave Jennifer clean light on her face, while a second light placed far behind her brought enough exposure back into the glass to keep the background glowing instead of falling flat.
Wardrobe: Akris Punto polka dot dress (Gus Mayer); Patricia Marie Fine Jewelry.
LaDonna Boyd | The R.H. Boyd Family Endowment Fund
LaDonna Boyd is the first woman to serve as president of the 130-year-old R.H. Boyd Company, a fifth-generation family business, and launched the Legacy Ball in 2022. She also, without fully realizing it, signed up to be photographed in a room we built from scratch minutes before she walked in.
On-Set Notes: LaDonna was our last portrait of the day, in a space we scouted early because we thought it would suit her outfit. It just needed a total transformation first. A large couch and an area rug had to go, no vote, no appeal, they simply had nowhere to be in this outfit's story. We pulled props from around the venue and built a small vignette, including a faux olive tree that that made the spot feel intentional rather than found. If hotel guests had walked in, they would have assumed we were redecorating or losing our minds. Honestly, a bit of both. We tried several angles, but this final setup turned out to be one of my favorites precisely because none of it existed 15 mins earlier.
Lighting Setup: We started with one large umbrella camera right, which created more shadow than we wanted. To balance it, we added a second light camera left, then bounced a third light off the ceiling to fill the shadows. Three lights and one relocated tree gave LaDonna great dimension without that flat, shadowless look you get when you are afraid of shadow.
Wardrobe: LAPOINTE satin cape tee and relaxed pants (Gus Mayer); Patricia Marie Fine Jewelry.
The Rest of The Incredible Model Behavior Women
Here are the rest of the incredible honorees from this year's feature:
Julia Baker
The Women's Fund
Development chair on The Women's Fund executive committee who recently co-chaired its most successful Power of the Purse fundraiser to date. She proved that a travertine wall and a navy dress can look like they were custom designed for each other.
Renee Bates
The Chestnut Group
A lifelong Nashvillian, plein air painter, and operator of Bates Nursery & Garden Center who has served on The Chestnut Group's board for over a decade. A lifetime spent around flowers clearly gives you an eye for color that a camera notices immediately.
Carrie Kitko
Nashville Wine Auction
Pediatric oncologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who recently completed a seven-year board term with the Nashville Wine Auction. Between saving lives and chairing boards, she managed to make a brass-trimmed bartop look like her personal runway.
Trish Munro
Tennessee Performing Arts Center
Five-year TPAC board member currently shaping the design of its new performing arts center. She brought a quiet, elegant presence that made an already striking room feel like a main stage.
Alice Hudson Pell
TennGreen Land Conservancy
Executive director of TennGreen and creator of the Hike-a-Thon fundraiser. She brought serious main character energy to a hallway full of houseplants.
What I Took Away From the Day
The biggest reminder from this shoot was that a good portrait is rarely the result of getting everything right on the first try. Sometimes it means clearing a room, moving a rug, pivoting locations, adding another light, or throwing out the original plan entirely. The ability to notice when a setup is failing, and make a fast decision, matters just as much as knowing how to build the lighting in the first place.
And occasionally, it means accepting that to anyone passing by, you look less like a professional photography crew and more like a high-speed rogue redecorating operation.
That is a Wrap
Ten women, ten stories, five involved lighting setups, and one very full day at the Fairlane Hotel. What I love most about shoots like this is that the finished portraits only tell part of the story. There are the heavy furniture moves, the rapid lighting changes, the test frames, the unexpected problems, and that magic moment when everyone gathers around the monitor and knows we got the shot.
BTS SHOTS OF THE BEST CREW
***Mostly photos of Anthony Romano***
Production Team Credits
Nashville Luxury Bridal
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