Timney Triggers, make the image, ask the question.

John Vehr on Robotic floor of his Phoenix facility.

      Whew! Another Spring, another frenetic round of commercial mini-shoots for clients of National Bank of Arizona for their spring campaign.

     While all of the clients were great to work with, John Vehr, owner of Timney Triggers is one who stands out.

A crew at work.

     Vehr's company manufactures aftermarket triggers for firearm enthusiasts. His crew create their products from scratch, using robots to cut the parts from blocks of aluminum and then assembling each product by hand. 

     When I saw the assembly area I knew just what I wanted from my photograph, but wondered if  some changes might be possible to create a better photographic environment.

     I almost hesitated to ask.

     It might be too disruptive, I thought.

     But the lesson here is, always ask. Sometimes they say, "whatever you want to do."

Assembly line reassembled int eh middle to allow umbrella and bounce for soft natural look.

     I wondered if we might move the assembly stations to the middle of the room, to provide more space for lighting gear to insert light to make a better image.

Checking in with his crew. Second view almost same lighting scheme.

     The crew assembled product at workstations along a wall, facing the wall,  not entirely ideal in inserting soft light to ensure that I could clearly see a complete line.

     So I asked.

     "Whatever you want to do," Vehr replied.

Lighting scheme allowed for other detail images
with little or no change in light scheme.

     It allowed more effective positioning of light around the subjects, using the wall and windows as a giant reflector to send a wall of soft while light into the subjects evenly while also providing space to position an umbrella directly opposite Vehr to subtly wrap my primary light source around him singling him out among his crew.

     The extra space also allows me to step back further from the table and use a short telephoto lens to "compress" all of the elements together as I more easily look down the line of work stations.  This also allows me to put my primary subject, John where he is comfortable, among his crew.

     Additionally, this set-up created a whole zone in the room where I could also make some detail images and some frames from another angle of Vehr interacting with employess while making little or no changes to the light scheme, making for a much more efficient creation of a whole series of images.

      Thanks to John and his crew for a great day at work!

Vehr makes sure his crew is happy, and their hard work keeps his company humming and happy.