Assignment: Ethicon Community Works Day

Last week, I was commissioned by Lehner & Whyte, the well-known Montclair design firm, to photograph a campaign for Ethicon, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, at their headquarters in Somerville. Ethicon makes sutures and other medical devices and every year they allow employees to take a day off and work on community volunteer projects. These portraits, which all used real employees, will be used to promote the June date.

Below are two of the portraits. Here's a peak behind the scene:
To illustrate Michael's project planting bushes and trees,  I set Michael in a patio behind their reception area and I used a long lens to blur the trees in the background. This focused attention on his smiling face as he leaned on a shovel we brought. I shot wide open with a 200 mm lens to have the least depth-of-field as possible. The natural light was augmented with a reflector to brighten his eyes and the shadows on his face.

Ileana, who sings at a local senior citizen center, was photographed indoors with a portable white background. The lighting came from a flash strobe that I bounced off the ceiling in the headquarter's lobby. The microphone is a prop and the background was added using PhotoShop after the shoot was finished.

Both subjects, Michael and Ileana, were not used to being models, but they really got into the spirit and helped make a very stylish ad for Ethicon's Community Works Day.

Lehner & Whyte