“Army Avation Support Facility Shoot Cheyenne Wyoming”

 

I recently had the opportunity to shoot for Coover Clark once again. My first shoot for their firm was in Grand Junction, Colorado and was of the new National Guard Readiness Center. My latest shoot for the them was  of the Army Aviation Support Facility in Cheyenne, Wyoming. As in the NGRC shoot I worked closely with Brian Duggan at Coover Clark who oversaw the project and had very specific recommendations for the shoot in regards to angles and composition of the shots to be taken.

A preliminary meeting was held with Brian at the Coover Clark offices in Denver where floor plans and elevations were reviewed for the shoot. Being a military facility, access and security was discussed in-depth in regards to who would be my contact and how I would access the base and structures. Trust me when I say that walking around any type of secured military base or government facility with a camera raises a lot of eye brows and always gives me the feeling that someone is looking over my shoulder (which they are).

I waited for over one hour in this specific spot to get this shot with the bird taking off in the background.

After my homework with Brian was completed all that was left to do was to set a shoot date and arrive at the facility ready to hit he ground running. After making contact with security and my escort it was just a matter of walking the facility with my camera, tripod and floor plans from Brian. We had discussed trying to get soldiers in the some of the shots to give perspective to the images and structures. Patience and timing is the best way to describe including people in architectural images.

The curtain in the background is to isolate the aircraft for cleaning and washing. A car wash for helicopters would be the best way to describe it…..

Pre planning and thorough discussions are the only way to make a shoot of this magnitude come together. On the same note no matter how much pre planning you do for a shoot like this one you always have to go into it knowing that not everything will be perfect or ready as you had planned.  I forgot to mention that my escort and liaison  was sick the day I arrived for the shoot and no one else at the location new anything about me being there. To make a long story short, after several phone calls to Colonels, Lieutenants and I would not be surprised a General or two,  and after a lot of standing around I was finally released to shoot the facility. An open mind and extreme patience is a must for my line of work…….it also help when your offered a cup of coffee while you wait.

 

“Colorado National Guard Armory Shoot”

I had a great project come my way recently that involved shooting the new Colorado National Guard Readiness Center in Grand Junction, Colorado. I was contacted by the architectural firm CooverClark out of Denver to shoot the project for them as well as the contractor FCI and for The Colorado National Guard.

Timing was critical on the shoot for the fact that all the parties involved wanted the building photographed before the staff actually moved into the space and gave it that…..lived in look you could say. Again flexibly was key to scheduling.

The architectural firm emailed me site plans of the project with notes describing angles and composition that they wished to capture. These were then reviewed over the phone with Brian Duggan from  CooverClark in detail and a game plan was drawn up for the shoot.

When discussing the exteriors with Brian and asking if they should be shot in the day verse dusk I found out that the exterior lights on the building could not be overridden. I always like to have the option of turning on any exterior or landscape lighting a good hour before actual dusk for insurance. You never really know what a structure will look like until that magic hour……by have the lights on sooner than later it takes out the last minute factor of running around and getting lights on and bulbs changed.

To cover my bases I shot all of the exteriors twice. Once in  daylight and then again at dusk. After reviewing the images in post it was plain to see that the dusk images were stronger than the daylight and more dramatic.

One thing to note. My assistant got one heck of a workout on this shoot. As you can see in the above images all of the interior lights are on in the building. What you don’t see is my assistant running back and forth through the interior spaces keeping all the lights on. The whole buildings lighting system is run off of motion sensors to conserve energy…..so once a room is idol of movement out go the lights…..this is when a young fit assistant comes in handy. Who said photography is not a physical career?