While most youngins spend their ninth birthday parties scarfing down cake with friends and ogling over gifts, Taya Burgett and a small army of assistants assembled 500 sandwiches to be given to Dallas’ homeless community by the good folks at SoupMobile.
My goal was to make a compelling portrait of Taya at the SoupMobile headquarters in Deep Ellum, incorporating something birthday-related to better communicate the article’s thrust. I chose to run with helium balloons, securing which was neigh an easy task at 7 a.m.
After some sketching and location scouting using Google Map’s street view, I was set on photographing Taya against a brick wall featuring two banners: a large American flag and a second banner with an enormous arrow pointing left and crowed with the word “SoupMobile.” Maybe we could actually get one of the SoupMobiles in the shot…
But when I arrive on that cold, blustery morning after having scrambled to come up with a dozen balloons, I discovered that the banners I’d so hoped to use as a backdrop had been severely manhandled by a storm and were in less than desirable shape for the shot.
That’s when I noticed the pigeons: several dozen going to town on old bread in the parking lot.
SoupMobile’s Director of Development, Lon Ricker, was kind enough to assist by angling a re-appropriated ambulance for the photo and even agreed to act as my test subject while I dialed in the lighting. (I later sent him a copy of the photo as a thank you.)
My talent arrived and, as luck would have it, Taya had had a sleepover the night before the shoot and showed up with her mom and a couple friends.
I knew the birds would likely cooperate for one, maybe two shots before getting overly annoyed with me. (The pressure builds a little when you know you’ll likely get a single chance to make a photograph.)
I framed up the shot, counting down to cue Taya’s friends who then charged after the pigeons. This shot, the one that ran in our print publication, was our first attempt.
We tried again, but the birds were less cooperative and, given that we were all freezing, we called it a day, but not before I made this portrait for my new friends, which I promptly emailed to the Burgetts.
In the spirit of SoupMobile, it’s nice to give back when you can.
