Freedom Financial – Arizona
This morning came early. 5:15 am. I woke up, gathered my gear that I packed last night for my photo shoot this afternoon, made a quick bagel and cup of tea and headed off. But today, my commute to the shoot was a little different than normal. I took a plane to Arizona.
I’m photographing the executives of Freedom Financial for their website. 20 of the executives are based in San Mateo and 6 are in Tempe, AZ. This has been an awesome project as I’ve been studying portrait taking over the last few months. I’m working on another portrait project for my church which I’ll talk about in another post.
Portrait taking is a skill that takes practice for sure. Lighting, background, expression, every detail plays such an integral role. You want all of those elements to get somewhat lost though, so that you see it but don’t see it and go deep into the person’s eyes. At least that’s what I want to do. Not always, I’ll say that, but most of the time. I want to get lost in seeing who they are, who they seem to be from the photograph.
This particular job, taking portraits of the 26 executives of Freedom Financial, has given me invaluable experience. Especially because each executive has been scheduled in 15 minute increments, back to back. I’ve had between 3 and 10 minutes with each person. Not a lot of time. It makes the time we do have together important. I have to somehow find something we have in common during that time, so that we can relate to each other and then they can relax and forget just a little about what’s happening. It’s a bit like speed dating with a camera!
I’ll post some highlights after this shoot is complete but I’ll show a few of the portraits from the San Mateo office. It’s funny to think I’ll be back home tonight after a 5 hour stay in Arizona. Back to my family and local shoots but I’m happy to say that I’m ready and able to travel for a shoot when necessary. I don’t know how people do this everyday, but every once in a while, I could handle that.
