Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Once is a while, we (photojournalists) are asked to or volunteer for, a shoot for a photo illustration. We attempt to illustrate an idea or concept. The idea here was to shoot a photo for a story on the H1N1 or Swine Flu and what schools are doing to plan for the possible outbreak in our public school system.

After a variety of masks, poses and staged looks of terror, we came down to these two photos and eventually went with the top photo. I was going to light it with a softbox from the front and pop a red gel from the back. Though I went for simplicity and used basic window light.

One of the problems with photo illustrations is finding the right model. The default model for most photographers is a reporter or editor sitting around the newsroom who's usually surfing the internet and looking as though they have nothing better to do. Or, hapless family, usually one of our children who have no choice in the matter. In this case it was my son who got orders to, "Put on this mask, stand right here and look scared. And stop fidgeting." He performed admirably and his only request for compensation was a copy of the paper in ran in. Alas, the story run without a photo and thus the illustration ends up as fodder for my blog.

Maybe I should have found a pig to put the mask on.