Chicago News Weekly

One sitting, two registers. Chicago News Weekly needed a cover frame with the formality a political profile expects, and a second set of frames with the collar open, for the pages inside. Both had to come out of a single session on a single day, because that is all the calendar allowed.

Two builds in one room. A painted blue backdrop over a worn yellow floor for the suit, lit so the face reads at cover size and at thumbnail size. Then a move to the library wall, available light, tee shirt and sneakers, for the frames that let a reader see the person rather than the office. Shot on the same afternoon, wardrobe change between setups, selects the same week. The cover setup ran two cameras at once, digital for the frame the paper needed on deadline and medium format film for the one worth printing.

Selected frames from the sitting. The cover ran from the blue backdrop set.

(Featured frame)

Same pose, same afternoon, second camera. The paper ran the digital frame because it had a deadline. This is the one that was worth printing.

Medium format film
Kodak 400 black and white
Raji Vela, ROQA Productions

A publication does not buy photographs. It buys a photography licence: a written permission to use named images, in named places, for a named length of time. ROQA keeps the copyright and the raw files, the publisher gets the use they actually need, and the credit line runs with the image. That is what separates photography licensing from a commercial spot, where the finished film is delivered for the client's own campaign.

What was licensed

A defined set of selects from one sitting, retouched and delivered at print and web resolution, rather than the full take.

Where it runs

Editorial use by Chicago News Weekly: the print cover, the article page, and the paper's own promotion of that story.

What stays with ROQA

Copyright, the raw files, and the right to show the work here. Extensions, additional images, or a wider buyout are quoted separately.

Cover story photography, Raji Vela, ROQA Productions · Chicago News Weekly, 10 September 2026

Licensing a single frame from an existing shoot, or commissioning a sitting of your own, both start on the photography licensing page.