Dallas Corporate Photographer: Half Price Books CEO Sharon Anderson Wright

So who wants to take a field trip with me to Half Price Books? If you raised your hand, or maybe even stood up and shouted exuberantly, then you know how fun it is to go to HFB and peruse just about anything written or recorded. As a self-prescribed photography junkie, this is one of the ways that I get my fix.

In fact, my mom only fuels the habit by always getting photo books from Half Price Books for my Christmas presents.  I am most likely incurable, but since I am a Dallas corporate photographer, it is probably an acceptable sin.

With an obvious affinity towards the company, you can imagine my excitement when I was called upon for an assignment to photograph their CEO, Sharon Anderson Wright. I needed to get several portraits of her inside the walls of their huge flagship store, which is right off Northwest Highway in Dallas.

I’ve been to several of their other locations, and drove past this location countless times, but had never been inside. Here was my chance to finally take a look inside.

When I arrived the day of the shoot, the first thing I did was walk through the entire store to find my best backgrounds. Every Dallas corporate photographer has to do photo scouting, whether it’s an hour before the shoot, or a few days or weeks in advance. I needed a variety of looks, and ended up picking three spots that looked completely different from one another. From there it was a matter of getting my lighted tested and perfected, and then on to photographing Ms. Wright.

Sharon is the daughter of Pat Anderson, who was one of the founders of Half Price Books when they began in 1972. She was incredibly gracious, and was also quite generous with her time. I had all the time I needed, so we were able to really work on the ideas I had.  Understandably, I wanted to keep books as the focus in all of the shots, even if they were there to just provide a bit of detail or be in the background. As Sharon is a pretty laid back CEO, we began the shoot with her sitting cross-legged in front of a set of great bookcases, which I felt displayed her more relaxed personality. From there we moved on to get a shot of her that showed the scale of the store, and then go for something really clean and pretty in the background. I had a vision of a tall stack of books, and the windows by their café gave a background that looked more like she was in a park than a bookstore. We had to maneuver a few tables to get things perfect and tweak a bit to get right between the window frames, but it ended up working out perfectly, much to the satisfaction of my Dallas corporate photographer self. On top of that, there were several patrons hanging out and talking, so Sharon got to have an audience for our finale shot. That certainly doesn’t happen every day for my photo shoots!

After the shoot, I was motivated to come back and take a little time with the books. I came back a little while later and proceeded to go through and pick out some new material to look over. I spent at least an hour perusing the photo books, and then came out with… a healthy cooking book and book on cheese making! I bet you didn’t see that coming at all. However, cooking is probably my second favorite activity after photography, so I was able to delve into both of my hobbies in one fell swoop. Enjoy!