This photograph is from a discussion taking place between myself, an art director, art buyer, photo assistant, photo producer, and factory supervisor during a photo shoot in a former Trabant factory in Zwickau, Germany. If it seems like a lot of people it is! Sometimes there are as many as 14 people on these commercial photography shoots - me, 2 assistants, hair, makeup, 1 or 2 clients, an art director, the art buyer, a producer, a local producer, a production assistant, a caterer, talent (the subject), and a mobile home driver. There are a lot of people standing around on these "shoot" days and I really think they must be a little bored at times. This is all part of the job I am doing for an ad campaign for Microsoft. It is my first commercial shoot and boy is it a whooper. I will be shooting in a total of sixteen countries over a period of three months. I have never done anything close to the scale of this job and it has and will be an adventure and an education for certain. I have slept in 7 hotels in the past 10 days alone! They have me shooting on a very tight schedule with very little down town so it is quite the test of my stamina. I have a few impressions already about the commercial world but I shall wait to put that down in writing after this is all over. I have met some really nice people and I am making good work for them - though I would say it is obviously different than my own personal work. There are so many other people involved in this process and so many other considerations regarding things like page layout and client needs that it is really something different and honestly not wholly my own. I am sure I will take away from this experience some new tools and skills to assist me in my own creative process.
