Happy Halloween!
I love writing a post for this category. It conjures up such great memories that I can re-live through this blog. It’s also a story that I will sometimes share with my online students with the BPSOP, and also my fellow photographers tha join me in one of my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around our planet.
Many moons ago, I was asked by the advertising agency that handled the Shell account to shoot the upcoming yearly calendar. Once a year truck drivers from all over the country gathered in a city for the chance to be picked for the calendar; and party in the evenings at the same time.
Among eighteen-wheel super rig truck drivers this is a really big event, and usually a couple hundred of them show up. They spend several days in a huge truck stop washing their trucks, polishing the chrome, and adding Armor-All to their tires.
They do all this for the chance to be one of twelve that make it, since the calendar is distributed all over the country.
To back up a little, every year after they have decided on a city they would rent a huge warehouse that was opened on both ends so each truck could drive in, park in front of a huge white seamless, be photographed, and drive out. I knew that it was going to be hard and time consuming with literally no feeling of accomplishment; creatively speaking that is.
July
That year they picked Nashville but I told the art director that I really wasn’t interested, and gave him an alternative idea. “Why not let me take each month and come up with an idea for it and shoot all twelve on location; and shoot a portrait of the truck’s owner in front of his truck?”
He liked the idea and ran it up the chain of command. Well, low and behold the top guy loved it and approved the fairly large budget.
I sat down with my producer/location scout and told her my ideas for each month and to find me several locations that would fit the bill. I sent her a couple of days ahead of time to start the proces. The art director and I arrived and while she was still scouting, that the art director and I walked around and picked the twelve trucks that we liked the best.
For October I wanted to do something that said Halloween, and found the perfect red-orange truck for it. Needless to say, the owner was thrilled and honored, and when I told him what I wanted him to do and wear, he just looked at me and a very big grin began to run from ear to ear.
We found an old cemetery and obtained permission to shoot there one evening. I rented several small one thousand watt spots and positioned them behind the truck and various headstones. We dressed him then I used a small softbox for his face. The final touch was to fog it up so all the lights would be backlit and the ‘very scary’ mood set.
I have to say that in all the years of shooting, this is right up there for the most fun a photogrqpher could ever have.
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
