If I Can Lift It, I Can Shoot It

I’ve shot numerous campaigns through the years requiring many diverse needs which involved challenging scheduling, props and locations…items that would make one wonder what possible relationship could they have with one another.  Many times it’s been a full-blown scavenger hunt. But I never thought I would be lifting over 500 lbs. of props for this particular project.

The client was “Vaseretic”…a drug that treats high blood pressure synergistically by combining two separate medications, therefore the double ‘twined’ arrow being fashioned by our “Smithy”. The items needed for our shot were the hammer and anvil, the pedestal of solid wood, a strong guy, and his wardrobe! We had a perfect casting session from which to select our final choice. Between our model agencies and my personal connections at gyms and health clubs, we came up big time with choices…some folks were actually too muscled up!

We located four anvils all at one farm.  Of course, I wanted to be the one to pick our anvil so off I went on my quest.  Everybody else at our studio was busy doing other pre-production…arranging the casting, wardrobe, etc. Good fortune had it that the hammer and block of wood (for the anvil’s base) were also available in the same location.   The two largest anvils were the ones I selected because of their scale, style and design. Now let’s add this up: Wood Block (150lbs), Anvil #1 (150lbs) and Anvil #2 (200lbs+)…to me, that all equals a great workout. Our client made the final choice …the larger one. Part 1, of the fun was complete…that was the ‘thrill of the chase’ for the props and such.

The Part 2 of the fun was the actual shoot…I had already envisioned the outcome, prior to even obtaining items from our short list …lighting, juxtaposition of the hand/hammer, anvil, along with the angle of the arrowhead and tail, including the very important negative space surrounding all of our items. Lighting was kept to a minimum using backlight and a soft overhead spot directed at the arrow’s head. The glow was helped along with a ’Warm Black Pro-Mist filter’ on my lens.

There were additional shots for this campaign, which included a thoroughbred horse race, and various ‘beauty’ shots of different size arrows.  All campaigns turned out beautiful which meant the creative team, agency, and client were all people who were made happy ...once again.