In January I shot 2 jobs in Atlanta GA. This one is a portrait of 10 of the top executives from O-I. O-I (Owens-Illinois) is the worlds leading manufacturer of glass beverage bottles. Named after the company's founder Michael J. Owens (the same Owens from Owens Corning) who in 1903 invented the automatic bottle-making machine. So the folks at O-I wanted a portrait of these ten people to be shot while they were having a global leadership meeting at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in downtown Atlanta. My challenge was to figure out something interesting to do with them, so it wasn't just another boring group shot. I called the hotel and asked about photographing in their lobby or any place else they had that would be interesting, but I was informed that I was prohibited from shooting in any part of the hotel that O-I was not specifically renting. That meant, shooting them in a meeting room or dragging them outside somewhere. Neither of those ideas sounded like a good idea, so I proposed shooting them on white, in a loose confident, relaxed grouping. The marketing rep loved the idea. Since I couldn't drag all of these guys away from their meeting and stick them in a proper studio, I would have to make the studio in their meeting room. The only trouble is trying to shoot a loose grouping of 10 men on a 12 foot seamless backdrop! I decided to shoot 2 groups of 5 and piece them together in photoshop. That worked, and the client is ecstatic.
