Oklahoma-based portrait photographer Cody Hammer stumbled into photography in 2017 by happenstance: After funding cuts at the Osage Nation Boys and Girls Club, the organization shifted Hammer from a previous position into the communications department, where a coworker asked if he could take a photo for a story she was writing. “I threw that Canon Rebel T6i on auto and headed out,” he says. “It was a simple photo of a building, but once that shutter fired, it triggered something in my brain and [I thought], Man, that felt good.”

Today the self-taught photographer and filmmaker, who is a Cherokee Nation citizen and now works as cinematographer manager at Cherokee Film, uses portraiture to convey his community’s stories. “I see it as a tool that helps me be creative and tell stories the way I want you to see them,” Hammer says. “Also, to be able to give people photos that they will always have and that will live on past them.”

For his photo of Simon W. (above), he used a Sony Alpha 7 IV with a Sony FE 50mm F1.4 GM lens and an Elinchrom strobe for off-camera flash. He wanted to convey movement in the photo, but since his camera didn’t have high-speed sync, “I had him pose for the photo as if he was moving,” he explains. The photo was made at 1/200 second at f/1.4, ISO 125.

In post-production, Hammer used his own preset in Adobe Lightroom for color enhancement and then used layers to shape the light. Then he moved the photo into Adobe Photoshop, where he created the illusion of movement by adding motion blur to the whole image and then brushing away the layer to reveal what he wanted in focus. “What I like most about it is the emotion that it brings out,” he says. “It instantly makes you look twice and dive into it.”

Amanda Arnold is a senior editor.