Primedia, publisher of Wireless Review, needed a photo to illustrate the idea of being in the "hot seat". Art Director Sheila Tawney sketched out the concept for a straight-on cover shot, but also needed a long wide spread for the inside of the magazine.
Working against a tight deadline, we located a classic wood chair and used the studio's parking garage to create the right sort of gritty film noir mood. The empty chair was lit dramatically from above to create a strong shadow and photographed on 4x5 color transparencies against the rough brick wall and steel door. The resulting films had the right look, but needed to have the "interrogation" light be a stronger beam. In addition, several parked cars and a roof support had to be removed and replaced with the long brick wall shown here.
Once the effects had been laid in on the studio workstation, the files were written to CD with layers intact so that the beam intensity could be varied at the last minute to accomodate the still-in-progress design of the spread. Total time from first phone call about the project to delivery of final image files was less than 48 hours..