Life before Photoshop: Accura Legend Photo Shoot

Taking ‘Artistic License’

The above photograph was shot for Acura, as a two-page consumer spread ad.

I had hired a location scout on the West and East coast to find a pier that would not be too high over the water. The West coast wouldn’t work, but I found a set of piers in Sarasota that would work perfectly. As usual, the location scout would send me their picks to my studio ahead of time and I would go through them to decide which ones I wanted to see when I arrived a couple of days before the agency people and client. When my team arrived, the location scout took me and my producer to look at the ones I had selected. We settled on the one in the photograph because according to my Sunpath and compass readings it was perfect for the light I was after. Plus, I could shoot off the pier right next to it.

I thought it was going to be a no brainer, but I also knew from a lot of experience that in this business, never think anything was going to be easy; I proved myself right.

The next day, the Art Director and the agency entourage arrived with the two clients in tow. I took the Art Director to the pier I thought would work the best. We scouted the location in the morning to make sure everything was cool with him and he loved it. That afternoon we went for the shoot, but no one had thought about the tide!!!

When we got there that afternoon to shoot the sunset, the  tide had come in (right on schedule I might add) and when we positioned the boat it was now covering the car (the hero!) While the two clients weren’t looking, the art director non-nonchalantly sashayed up to me and asked me with trepidation in his now pallor face if I had a plan ‘B’?????

I thought for a moment then an idea hit me in the head like a big Pepperoni Pizza Pie . I sent my producer back to the beginning of the pier where there was a tavern favored by the locals. I had her go in and offer a twenty dollar bill to anyone that would come out, get inside the boat and lie down.

So what you see in this photo, or actually you don’t see, is fifteen really large inebriated locals that are lying down inside the boat. Because of all the additional weight, we were able to lower it just enough for me to get the shot.

Remember that it was in the days before Photoshop, so whatever I had to come up with had to be done “in the camera”.  So having said this, there’s absolutely no post-processing done to this photograph.

This is all about “Stretching Your Frame of Mind“, which happens to be the title of my workshop. Check it out and come shoot with me sometime.

This coming July 29th will be my 30th anniversary teaching at the Maine Media Workshop. I’ve always picked this time as it’s the week of the Lobster Festival down the road in Rockland. This ofers a unique set of photo ops, different from the Maine Coast, fishing villages and lighthouses. The Lobster Festival is all about color, design, light, energy, people watchng and environmental portraits everywhere you look; some people are there in costumes and loved to be photographed.

In conjunction with The Santa Fe Workshops, on October 2nd I’ll be leading a group in San Miguel de Allende. A beautiful oasis and artist colony, and the entire city is a UNESCO site.

Come join me for a week of fun and photography…what could be better?

JoeB