Partnering once again with Peter Taylor Photography, I was given the task of creating a 26 foot banner that is now on permanent display in the Charlotte office of Northeastern University, a private research university based in Boston. I tend to enjoy the more involved photo retouching projects so this was a fun one for me.
I assisted Peter on set both on location in Charlotte as well as in Boston. The first shoot took place at the Charlotte branch, which was the focus of this campaign. Using rough layout of the banner from Wray Ward we were able to decide on a camera angle and move forward. Since each key school personality was photographed individually and in different locations, careful detail was paid to insure that the lighting was uniform across the entire scene. From one of the building's offices Peter and I captured roughly 80 bracketed exposures to create the large high dynamic range panorama that appears in the background of the final image. The same workflow and attention to detail was continued a week later when we flew to the main university location in Boston.
A few days and a several revisions later I delivered massive final (printing at 150dpi at 26 feet across makes for a rather large file!) which now is on display at Northeastern University in uptown Charlotte NC. The most fun aspect of the banner is that it takes up most of the real estate of the office which faces the city's main thoroughfare.
This is a great example of why I enjoy working closely with my clients from an idea's inception to it's final completion. It isn't a stretch to say that any image can be improved upon, but including your retoucher in the conversation from the very beginning can greatly improve the end result.