Client:

Bound Tree Medical

Project:

On Location Photography

Bound Tree Medical, a Sarnova business based in Dublin, Ohio, is a distributor of emergency medical equipment, supplies, pharmaceuticals and product expertise for fire departments, military, government institutions and other emergency medical services (EMS) organizations that provide pre-hospital, emergency care.

This is one of my older projects, but to this day it is still one of my favorites. This shot featured several products and it appeared on the cover of the 2010 Bound Tree Medical product catalog. You can’t tell from the photo but this was shot in the middle of the afternoon on a hot, sunny, summer day. And this wasn’t AI or some Photoshop trick either.

Our goal was to recreate the gritty realism of EMS and we enlisted an entire team of people to pull it off, including makeup artists, the fire department, the police, an EMS training facility, and a fire engine filled with water from the local reservoir.

We staged the scene, prepped the products, trained our models, and took a bunch of test photos before we unleashed the water. We only had one water truck, so we only had one shot to get this right (no pun intended). When we finally agreed that we were ready I got into position and gave everyone the green light. The fire department sprayed their hoses straight up into the air, instantly blocking out the sun and unleashing a downpour, and I shot as many photos as I could before the water ran out.

Was I stuck in the rain? No… I shot the photo from about 100 yards away using a long range zoom lens, laying flat on the ground to get the right perspective. Not only was this a cool shoot (and a ton of fun) it’s one that I am incredibly proud of. Firefighters and EMTs are out there saving lives in the rain, snow, dirt and mud, day and night, in good neighborhoods and bad, generally surrounded by chaos. This photo provides a small window into a world that few people see.