Apex “Corporate” Portraits
June 1, 2017In May I was asked to come out to the Apex Process Consultants’ Annual meeting to do a variety of Photography. Over the years, we’ve developed a bit of a relationship, starting with simple head shots, and updating them, as styles change and new employees are added, and even doing some video work at off-site clients in California. At the annual meeting, it was the usual stuff, covering the event, which took place at the farm of the president of the company, taking formal portraits of all the employees, as well as a more unusual request, at least for this type of client. Anyone that wanted to take part, would collaborate with me to create a portrait of themselves that showcased a, mostly non-work related, part of their personality.
The images we came up with ended up being really cool, in great part due to the fact that each of these people was very much excited by the fact that their company was taking an interest in their interests, and that the things they were showcasing were things for which they had a certain passion.
Some images ended up presenting an idealized version of the self. The vision a person has of themself often doesn’t match up with reality on an everyday basis. So my photos allowed these folks to capture visually the image they have of their best self in their own mind. Something like the Matrix.
Some images featured the props of a favorite pass time. This is where a passion really showed through, and on my end I was able to learn about new things that I’m not in contact with in my day to day.
Other images featured more of a fictionalized version of the subject, something like an unrealized boyhood fantasy come true in photographic form. When the reality of being a turn of the century logger doesn’t pan out in the twenty-first century, really the only option is to imagine yourself as one, and better yet to see yourself as one in photographic form.
We even did some photos with farm dog Bear
All in in all, it was an awesome time on the farm.