Larry Harper is a guy I know from around.  I do not know where Larry lives, nor I do know where Larry originally hails from.  If Larry hadn’t signed a model release, I wouldn’t have known his last name was Harper.  However, I see Larry while walking my dog at least once every two weeks.  We stop and chit-chat, he inevitably calls me some variation of ‘chief’ or ‘boss’ and I smile.  It takes a special person to call people ‘chief’ or ‘boss’ and not have it seem ridiculous or like they have forgotten your name.  Larry is one of those special people.  He is a big guy–I’d guess him to be 6’5″–with an even bigger energy.  He has a booming voice and a laugh that isn’t necessarily loud, but can be heard from a block away. Larry has an energy all his own.

When I was putting this shot together, I knew I needed someone distinct to be on the train platform.  I originally cast a man with an incredible sartorial acumen, but it fell through.  Then I decided that a woman in a wedding dress might be good, but finding the right person for that became an effort in futility.  Then I bumped into Larry one morning and realized that he was my man.

I usually work with one assistant on my shoots.  If the photo requires it, I bring a second.  I thought this was a ‘one assistant’ shoot.  I was wrong.  I figured that I could keep my lone assistant inside Centre Physical Therapy, call him on his phone and give him instructions to pass along to the physical therapists inside; it’s how I normally work on these photos.  I figured that I could then simply give instructions to Larry across the tracks myself.  Well, it turns out that a lot of sound got lost going from the north side of the tracks where I was shooting to where Larry was standing.  I had to basically scream everything to him… or give him some incredibly comical pantomimes to express what I wanted.  Bystanders must have loved this.

If there’s one thing I would have changed abut this image, I would have tried to see where I could add some more red to it.  Larry is holding a red beer can in his hand and Amy Sheridan is inside in a shade of red, but I needed more… I’m just not sure where it would have been.