A couple weeks ago, we went to Virginia Beach to photograph a Republican candidate for the VA House of Delegates, Chris Stolle. We got to the shoot and that's when I realized the Obama 'O8 bumper sticker was on my truck!Fortunately, Chris's campaign manager, Missi Sousa (a worldly young woman direct from Washington D.C.,) wasn't phased in the least.
We spent the day with Chris, going to various locations and photographing him with lots of different folks who work and live in Virginia Beach.
Creating images of a candidate for office is just like creating images for any product or service. Our job is to visually tell a story about that person. Chris' campaign was in need of specific images to help tell his story; illustrating key issues in his platform.
One of the images the campaign needed was a casual portrait.. His "day job" is an OB-GYN at a local Tidewater hospital. He's senior staff at the hospital; sees patients along with evaluating the hospital's response to patient treatment in general. But "Dr. Chris" as I called him the day of the shoot, didn't need another white coat physician portrait. What he needed was an "I'm a taxpayer like you" across the kitchen table portrait. An accessible, next door neighbor approach was called for. My goal was to create an image that would make a good first impression with a voter who is just getting to know Chris.
The frame above is what the campaign chose for the campaign home page.
Copyright 2009, Elaine Odell, Church Hill Photography.
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