bwhip62 Offline Upload & Sell: On
|
p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Construction Company Christmas Card - An Homage to a Classic | |
http://bwhip.com/galleries/BlogPhotos/Misc/final_final_fs.jpg
Every Christmas season, our commercial construction company tries to come up with a creative card to send to clients and friends in the industry. We get so many of the same tired, cliche cards, that we always want ours to stand out a bit, and have some personality to them.
This year, I had the idea that it might be fun to try to replicate the famous photo of the construction workers high above New York City, having a lunch break while precariously perched on a beam, during construction of the 30 Rockefeller Plaza building back in the 1930’s. Lunch on a Skyscraper
It’s become a truly iconic image, especially within the construction world, and I knew that if we could pull off something similar, it would bring a smile to anyone who knows us. The original image has the city in the background at a particular angle, and shows a bunch of Central Park. I looked online for a similar background photo, but they either weren’t the right view, or the right angle, which I felt was important to evoke memories of the original. Finally I found a photo which could legally be reused (thanks to the original photographer of that image, Jerry Ferguson), and was about the right height and angle. It wasn’t Central Park, but I didn’t feel it was super important for anyone who isn’t completely familiar with Manhattan.
We found a steel beam at one of our jobsites, and set it up so that our feet could dangle appropriately. There would be seven of us on the beam rather than the original 11, and we weren’t going to try to dress in costume or anything like that. We figured we’d just be ourselves, but put ourselves in a very similar scenario to evoke the original. I carefully set up the tripod with my camera to be at about the same height and angle as the original, and we began the short photo session.
We tried a bunch of poses that were true to the original (pretending to light a cigarette, conversing, opening the lunch boxes, holding a liquor bottle, etc., but in most of those you couldn’t really see our faces that well. We finally settled on one where we were all looking toward the camera, and sharing a laugh (surely over something inappropriate that one of us had said). {by the way, that's me on the far right]
I then went to work in Photoshop, and did my best to capture the spirit of the original, while still making it easy to see all of our office staff, and their individual personalities. Everyone we’ve shown it to so far has gotten a big kick out of it – so, mission accomplished! Now, just 12 months to figure out next year’s clever card…
|