CAE Annual Report with Concrete Design.
We flew to Binghamton, NY to shoot for CAE who makes flight simulators for every airline all over the world.
They had an in-house photographer and usually that never goes well. They can be threatened by an outsider.
But we were there to stir the visual pot. I’d shoot 4 x 5 film, so we could get lots of tilt / shift focus and then I was going to cross process the film. Pretty gutsy when you are sent all that way. You better come home with something good.
We loaded my Profoto strobes into the simulator, I was only going to use the model lamps dimmed. 5 windows means 5 TV screen and the lights on the cockpit instruments.
I sized up the lighting, set my camera, took a meter reading, I have 5 people behind me on the gangway and I shoot a Polaroid. We waited for it to cook. I peeled it. And, the in-house photographer said…
Holy crap, I have been trying to shoot that for 15 years and I could never do it.” I said, “If you let me just get the shot, I will teach you how I did it.”
The computer / flight simulator programmers heard me say that to the photographer and at the end of the shoot, after I had taught him, they said, “Are we good?” “Then let’s get you equipment out of the simulator, we will let you fly the plane.”
OMG, OMG, we flew under full simulation into Mt. Hood where Boeing is located. I did it. I was fine. I got too excited at the end and hit the terminal - I was a little too quick.
They said, where else do you want to fly, I said, Kowloon, let’s land in between the buildings. He said, “You cowboy.” This time I wasn’t doing as well, so he touched the screen, ( before any of us had touch screens ) and suddenly I was 50 miles out in another direction to try again.
What a blast. What an honour, but I get why they paid it forward, because that day I taught someone how to shoot what will be useful to them for years to come.
You never know when you are entertaining an angel.