Dallas Corporate Photographer: Smokin' Portraits

I get to see a lot of things as a creator of corporate photography in Dallas. I've seen so many types of businesses and often get to have a behind the scenes look at certain industries. I've been able to take in some pretty cool stuff, but today's post was certainly one of the more interesting ones I've come across. The vapor, or e-cigarette industry, is one that has taken off with unbelievable speed and popularity. It's pretty easy to see why. It basically allows people that smoke to still get nicotine while reducing many of the toxins you would ingest in a cigarette. They have all kinds of flavors as well. As one executive told me, it's not healthy for you, but it is definitely better than smoking cigarettes.

I was asked to take Dallas corporate portraits of two vapor industry executives, and got pretty excited. After all, this was a new industry to me, and based on the art direction, was set to be a very cool, and very dramatic shoot. I'm all about creating mood and drama with my lighting, so the project was totally in my wheelhouse. Since I do have the great fortune to partake of so much behind the scenes action, I figured I would fill you in on what the shoot looked like behind the scenes.

First came the setup. I am a mobile photographer in Dallas, so the vast majority of my setups are on location. That could be anywhere from a highrise to a fracking site, and I bring a studio with me. I can shoot in studio as well, but it is typically more convenient for my clients to have me come to them, especially as full as most peoples' schedules are these days. For this particular shoot, I set up inside of their warehouse. I secured a black backdrop to one of the walls and got the furniture loaded in. From there I started tweaking the lights in and actually created two different setups: one to handle all of the portraits, and another for Dallas headshot photography.

While I was doing all of this, my fantastic stylist was busy getting the subjects ready with hair and makeup so that they were good to go and all perfect for the shoot.

Once everything had been tested, it was time to go.

We of course wanted to have a variety of portraits to suit various marketing and PR purposes. I shot some of the portraits and headshots with more of a classic Dallas corporate photography look, while others were to be more creative and edgy. That is where the smoke came in. They wanted to have shots of the subjects with smoke swirling all around them, given that it ties pretty well to the type of work that they do. Ask any photographer if they want to shoot with smoke and watch them light up like a four-year-old at Christmas. I might as well have been given a puppy! To achieve the look, a fog machine was to be used. That would have been great, except it refused to turn on. Time for plan B. The warehouse we were in also happened to be a manufacturing facility for the vaping liquid, so there were plenty of guys around that had their e-cigarettes on them. I found my new source for smoke! Plus, it was more authentic and I had multiple people producing the 'smoke', and could really control the direction. It worked out perfectly for the shots, and I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I did shooting them!