I love editorial photography. The work is creative, the subjects are interesting, and the conditions are unpredictable. You just never know how it’s going to go, so you have to be ready to let go of preconceived notions and roll with the punches. Those punches can come in many forms. Sometimes the punch is that the subject can only give you ten minutes instead of the hour you thought you had. Sometimes it’s a sudden rain shower, or a broken strobe, or a bored security guard. Whatever it is, you have to take it in stride, figure it out, and move forward.
In this case, the punch was a car. The cover of the magazine was to be an environmental portrait of Manfred Scharmach, owner of BMW Northwest, with his gorgeous 1939 BMW 327/28. Full disclosure, I don’t know anything about cars. I can fill the gas tank and change a tire, and I know you don’t want frozen wiper fluid lines on a cross country road trip in the dead of winter, but that’s about it. I do appreciate a beautiful design when I see it though, and this car shook the Dick Tracy loving child in me wide awake.
In our conversations about the cover image, Lori Randall (Randall PR) had in mind a rural setting—trees, sky, maybe even some water somehow. We’d picked several spots near the dealership to scout ahead of time and I checked them out on Google’s street view. On the morning of the shoot, Lori and I and Uly, my assistant, visited a couple locations and picked our favorite: a grassy lot with trees in the background, very Pacific Northwest. By the time we’d be shooting, the sun would be in just the right spot for a late morning rim light. Plans!
So back to the punch: the car wouldn’t start, and there was no way to get it from the storage garage to the location we’d chosen. While Manfred kicked himself for not trying the car the week before, we looked for another option. Lori adjusted to the situation brilliantly, and we all quickly agreed that the wall of the garage was perfect. It didn’t say rural, of course, but its two-tone paint scheme echoed the car’s and once the BMW was pushed halfway along the building to the right spot, the background was beautifully broken up by the shadow of a tree. I knew the sun on Manfred would be a problem and we were ready to break out the scrim to deal with it, but once the strobe with the octabank was in place, it acted as a flag and did the job for us.
We shot away and Manfred did a wonderful job of letting go of his frustration. In the end, Lori and I were both super happy, especially given the circumstances. The results were objectively great and the shot even looks intentional. It wasn’t what any of us had envisioned, but sometimes that’s how it goes. Curveballs! Isn’t photography fun?
