Employee of the Month

Remember all those light tests? It was pretty boring stuff, right? Well the day has come when you can see what it was all about.

My boss was thrilled, my boss's boss was thrilled, everyone was thrilled and everyone told me that everyone was thrilled. These pictures were taken in one day and I had no assistant. There were 2 hairdressers and 2 makeup artists. There was an artistic director and a coordinator, there was an assistant stylist, there was a bunch of PRs from the Airport Authority of Thailand (this shoot is all about promoting Thailand's new airport opening next month), but no assistant photographer. I lugged around my four slave flashes, my tripods (2 nice ones and 2 of the kind you get free with some cameras), my white and transclucent future-board, my duct tape, my Vivitar 3200 flash and its silly mini-lightbox, etc. At one point I bumped into a photographer using a Mamiya RB67 and a digital back. Once I stopped drooling, I noticed he had two assistants. Then again, his tripod alone probably weighed as much as all my gear combined. Occasionaly, someone would pity me and help me carry some of my stuff. It was pretty insane come to think of it. We finished late but we finished. It was yesterday and I'm still tired.

If I saw this shoot in a magazine, I'd probably say it's utter crap and the photographer should be hanged and it's a bloody shame random assholes can pretend to be photographers and get away with it. In my defense, I wasn't anywhere near having full creative control on this thing and the models are not models but Suvarnabhumi airport's "ambassadors". But that's not even the point. I did it. It's mine. I worked hard to make sure it would at least be technically feasible and there were no bad surprises. Look at the light tests, it's more or less the same light as on these shoots. Oh and I even had one cool idea, putting flashes in the X-ray machine. I like that shot.