Peter Simonsen
CEO, AZ State Savings & Credit Union
Glendale, AZ ~ 2:06 PM on 4.16.2003

Andrew Danish, the art director Cisco Systems iQ magazine asked for an environmental portrait of Peter Simonsen. This was a cover story for the July/August 2003 issue. One of the single images ran on the cover and this triptych ran across 2 pages inside.

When I scouted the location, I found this impressive wall and knew immediately that we would shoot here. When we started setting up the lighting, the sun was actually coming through the open wall space so I wanted to keep that look. The option was to open the ambient exposure (shutter speed) or set up a strobe to replicate the look of the sun... of course the sun keeps moving, so the strobe gives us a consistent look for each exposure. Also, if I opened up the shutter speed, then the sky, trees, and the metal fixture at the top of the wall would get lighter in exposure and I didn't want that to happen.

Strobist info / Lighting: four Dynalites
Medium Chimera, camera right
10" reflector w/black wrap to light wall foreground.
10" reflector w/black wrap to light wall background.
10" reflector on other side of wall to replicate the sun.

Nikon 35-70mm lens, 81B filter
Exposure: 250th/sec @ f/16
Film: Fuji Astia RAP 100
Photoshop: almost none.
Photo Assistant: Lyle Moultrie