Like most covers of magazine these days it all starts with being commission from the Editor. They have a story in the magazine and need a shot to go with it, this assignment was a firefighter editorial. It seemed for me the only way to shoot the cover was to put a guy who had great eye contact with the viewer of the magazine. That’s how they like to sale the magazine. “Eye’s looking out at you”. It just so happened that I had a buddy up the road that is a real firefighter paramedic. I went by to see if he would pose for the shot and he said OK.
Sunday morning, he came by the studio, I had my lights all set up ready to go. One light for the face with a reflector under his face to bounce some light back up under the helmet. The two lights with orange gels to the back of each side of him. The trick is to make sure that the model is far away from the backdrop to keep it black. At the last min, I washed some smoke in the background air that the back lights would pick up and bam! There is the shot. It’s that ezy when you know how!