Robert Yaro for CONTEXT Magazine

I photographed Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, this week for CONTEXT, the journal of AIA Philadelphia. The shoot was on of the most trying shoots I’ve ever had. Robert is a high-speed rail advocate, so our original intention was to photograph him in Philadelphia’s beautiful 30th Street Station. Photography is allowed there, but commercial photography requires special permission. While this assignment wasn’t really a commercial one, I still wanted to coordinate with the powers that be at the station since I was planning on bringing a set-up that, despite being just one light, would be relatively intrusive and would definitely draw serious attention. That said, I bounced back and forth between two folks who work for Amtrak, and getting it scheduled with a very short window (Robert works in New York City, and is only in town once a week to teach at UPenn) to shoot, we scrapped the station for somewhere on UPenn’s campus.

Like most design schools, Penn’s building is not the prettiest on the inside despite all the awesome work the students are producing. Luckily, about 100 feet away is the Frank Furness designed Fisher Fine Arts library (which is absolutely gorgeous and a must-see if you are in or around Philly). Even luckier, Robert’s classroom is inside. Small, dim and packed with windsor-style chairs and tables, the room has a series of stained glass windows overlooking the library. While not nearly exciting as the expanses of 30th Street and knowing the windows wouldn’t provide the bokeh-ist of bokehs, I knew this would work in a pinch because the headline and subhead will appear in the top left corner, and a single column of text will run along the right-hand side starting at about his left shoulder (it helps to be the publication designer, too). The image will run full page as the lead in to the piece. I’ve left some room, crop wise, to work with, but I suspect the final layout will shift him off center and bring the top edge down to cut off the very top of his head. (To get a feel for the final layout, click here to open up a PDF of the two-page spread. Hilarious placeholder text courtesy Hipster Ipsum.)

My assistant and I got on location about 15 minutes before Robert (I would always shoot for an hour earlier, but there was a class using the room) and I discovered that my AB800 strobe would not fire despite all the cursing and stamping my feet. Strange, since the light is brand new and has only been tested once at home, where it worked perfectly. (Looks like there was a problem with the flash tube, and I give a huge thumbs up to the customer service folks at Paul C. Buff for sending a new one as fast as they did.) My plan to shoot Robert with the AB800 and 47″ octabox was scrapped and I resorted to using the SB600 and 40″ shoot-thru umbrella. We got the exposure dialed in just as Robert entered the room. We had him for about 15-20 minutes before he had to run to a faculty meeting and get to class.

Grace under fire, right? Never mind that I was sweating bullets. Just goes to show, always bring backup …