Stay Lucy!!!!
For those of you that might be new to my blog, I was an advertising, corporate, and editorial photographer for over forty years and for the past ten years I have been teaching an online class with the BPSOP, and once again traveling the world only this time conducting my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops.
Over a glass of wine or martini I will often talk about some of the stories that would happen during my shoots; and they would usually make me laugh.
I was shooting the Quaker Oats annual report for Genisis, a graphic design firm in Denver, and one of the companies subsidiaries was Fisher-Price.
I loved working for Mike Miller (the owner) because he would just give me a list of photos he wanted, and then just turn me loose to come up with an idea that would visually illustrate the company.
I went to the local Toys-R-Us and shopped around for ideas. I saw this teetor-totter seesaw and immediately envisioned a shot. Btw, whenever I saw clearly something in my mind, I could always create it.
Scouting around neighborhoods looking for the best light to hit in an area late in the afternoon was a challenge. Since the prettiest areas were covered with large trees, finding just the right spot would take some doing. As was always the case, I would use my Sunpath program and a hand bearing compass called a Morin2000.
With these I could pinpoint to the one degree exactly where the light would hit, what time it would, and how long it would be in the same spot; as it turned out my front yard was perfect.
My idea was to have two kids playing on it and since there wasn’t a lot in the budget for professional models, I was just going to use my two daughters…they wouldn’t work for free, but for a dollar plus they got to keep the seesaw, we struck a deal; or so I thought.
When the time came, my daughter that was a year older decided that SHE WAS NOT going to come outside!!! Knowing that I had just a few minutes, I brought Lucy, our dog out with a leftover cheeseburger in my hand.
As luck would have it Lucy weighed more that Blair. I pointed to Lucy to get on the seesaw and gave her half the burger and told her to “stay”!!!
I ran back to the camera and was able to get off a couple of shots before I would have to run back and give Lucy another bite. I was able to do this a few times before I ran out of Lucy’s modeling fee. As you can see by her looking at me she was ready for either more cheeseburger or she was done. At that time she promptly got off and ran back to the house…and that was a wrap!!
Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime. I just announced my New York, New York Workshop beginning September 17th ,2019 and ending at noon on the 23rd. This will be my second workshop there and this time we’ll be shooting in all the five boroughs.
JoeB
