Barbara McConnell Barrett
Aviation Lawyer, Phoenix, AZ ~ 5:15 PM on 12.21.1993

Environmental Portrait of Barbara McConnell Barrett for Arizona Business Magazine.

A brief biography: When Ronald Reagan won the 1980 presidential election, he recruited Barbara to serve as vice chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB). In 1994, she ran for governor of Arizona, the first Republican woman to run in the state, but lost in a close election. In April 2008 Barbara Barrett was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the new U.S. ambassador to Finland.

Here's a little story about the shoot:
It was a stormy rainy December day and I almost wanted to cancel the shoot because of the weather... of course I'm glad I didn't now. The subject was about 45 minutes late for the photo shoot, so I was worried the sunset would be gone before we could get the shot done in time.

I had an airplane ladder set up to the right side of the wing. so when she arrived I asked her to walk onto the wing and started shooting. We shot 2 rolls of 120 film (24 exposures), exposure on the first roll was at 1/2 sec, exposure on the second roll was at 1 second. Most of the shots I had her looking at the camera, but I liked the "man of vision" looking off camera for this portrait.

Strobist info / Lighting:
lots of Dynalites here, along with about 600 feet of extension cords to get the power from the hanger to the airplane so we could run the power packs:
Main light: Medium Chimera, @ 1,000 ws
Foreground area of plane: 10" reflector w/diffusion & black wrap @ 1,000 ws
Middle area of the plane: 10" reflector w/diffusion & black wrap @ 500 ws
Lower back wing: 10" reflector w/diffusion & black wrap @ 500 ws
Top back wing: 10" reflector w/diffusion & black wrap @ 2,000 ws

Hasselblad 150mm lens with an 81B filter, exposure: 1 sec @ f/16
Film: Fuji RDP 100
Photoshop: almost none.
Photo Assistant: David Dooley

Location: Dynair, Phoenix
And one more thing... it's difficult to get an airplane for a photo shoot, cause if a plane is sitting around on the ground it's not making any money.