Frame by Frame: Benco Dental Company Photo Day

Admittedly, this wasn't a very recent project. This was shot some time mid-summer, but I just ran across it today at work and wanted to share.

Sally Cohen, wife of the chairman of Benco, decided she wanted to capture a photo of every associate that worked at the CenterPoint headquarters in a giant group shot. You'd think that even with a headcount of 400ish people, it still wouldn't be too tough to organize a 30 minute set up and shoot. However, more than half of the associates work in a call center, which can't be shut down during the day or have a majority of the people off the phones at once.

So, my concept went from one shot of a huge group to multiple group shots and the magic of Photoshop. The only room in the entire building to shoot was a section of the warehouse. It took around 8 hours to tape off the entire floor.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a full taped shot. This is after we tried (and failed) to pull all the tape off.

After the floor was taped off (which was designed by geniuses in IT), a member of our Culture & People Department (HR) help organize groups of employees every 30 minutes throughout the day.

Here's the fun part. Since the photos had to be layered together in Photoshop, the angle of the shot couldn't change or the perspective would be completely off. Also, to capture the entire area, I was about 30' in the air on a scissor lift (also, Tamron 17mm-55mm was a lifesaver). Basically, I had to stay in the lift for about 5 hours waiting for all of the groups to come through for their shots.

Oh, I'm also scared of heights.

I want to say "so once I got comfortable," but that never happened. I don't think there was a point throughout the entire day where I felt okay in this lift.

Here are the photos from the day followed by the final shot. You will see some slight variation in angle and placement. If I breathed too hard the thing swayed.