I got a call on Monday from a great client to go and shoot the Cover for the next issue of the magazine this morning in NE Portland. The story is about a foundation that helps support a charter school for high school kids learning about construction. WE were not entirely sure what the photo would be when the editor and I arrived on scene. So we looked around and tried to come up with something. The challenge on this one, was that they had shot a cover 6 months or so ago at the same location and didn’t want the two photos to look similar at all.

So I did like I always do and walked around trying to think of something cool. At first we wanted to shoot in the huge warehouse full of construction projects, but that was scrubbed by the first person we talked to, for “safety reasons”. There goes plan “A”. Then, we thought we wanted something in a classroom setting. So we found an empty classroom and the plan was to have them working on a model or something like that, not the best, but we had a plan “B”. I set up lights and shot some test photos. When another staff member showed up, we scrubbed plan a because she wanted to shoot in our original location and had more pull apprently because we got the ok to go in there from another staff member. So, then we talked about what we wanted them to do. Plan “C” was have them sawing some wood. Ok, at least they would be doing something. But then, we got to talking and the students mentioned welding. Ah ha! That is much more interesting than wood! Plan “D” Shoot them welding. This plan was quickly scrubbed because there was not a “certified welding instructor” on campus. On to Plan “E” which was to scrub the whole shoot and come back when there WAS a welding instructor. But we would shoot something of them sawing just in case. As we were setting up this photo, and still trying to work the welding angle, all of a sudden a welding instructor shows up! Yeah! Back to plan “D”! We went into the welding room and the welding machines were setup to weld in these tiny little 3×3 rooms. Could work, but not ideal. Luckily we were able to track down extension cords and rig things up just right to be able to have them weld in a bigger area. Plan “F” was now in full effect. Finally we had an idea and a location, now its up to me to do my job and make this look cooler than it really is. The first thing we had to do was figure out the exposure of the welder. Those suckers are BRIGHT. Once I dialed that in, I added a speedlight gelled with a full CTO with a grid to light up his helmet, another speedlight with 1 and 1.4 CTO behind him to light his shadow side. They wanted the instructor in the photo as well, so we added him and I had one of the editors hold a speedlight with a red gel over it to light him. Everything was coming together nicely. We added one last speedlight with a red gel to light up the table just a bit and then we shot a few frames of him welding. I pays to be persistent! Here is a photo of the room and of the setup.

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