Chicago-based photographer Christopher (Chris) Bradley was recently approached by Aimee Wertepny, the founder of PROjECT Interiors, who was in a jam and needed his help immediately. Having worked with PROjECT before, Chris was thrilled to jump on board and collaborate with one of his favorite clients again.
PROjECT Interiors is a Chicago-based interior design studio that works in a wide variety of spaces, ranging from residential to commercial, retail to hospitality. For ten years now, PROjECT has dedicated themselves to being a top interior design firm with a knack for giving back to various international charities.
Aimee reached out to Chris because she was hoping to shoot her newly designed office space and submit the images to Crain’s Chicago Business for their 2017 Coolest Offices contest. Due to her hectic schedule filled with travel and deadlines, she managed to slot out a last-minute six hours of shooting time the day after she called Chris.
This was one of the quickest, dirtiest shoots I’ve ever done. I knew I’d never get an assistant in less than 24 hours so while I was still on the phone with Aimee, I was already mentally paring down my kit to bare essentials.
Chris ended up packing as little as he could, carrying only his laptop, camera, tripod, lots of memory cards and reflective surfaces. He made the brave decision to only use a hand-held flash unit as his source of external lighting.
The goal of the project was to showcase the office space in a vivid way that would make it transcend the two-dimensional photograph. Shooting without external lighting made this project unique and pushed Chris out of his comfort zone, but also allowed the photos to remain consistent and cohesive.
It’s always fun to challenge yourself, to try to think of new ways to make images, to try new things. I remember in college having a painting assignment where we were working with a ‘limited palette’, essentially black, white, and one other color of paint. It felt like that.
Although he didn’t manage to line up an assistant, Chris was fortunate enough to bring his ten-year old daughter Emma on the shoot. She had a concussion the day before and needed supervision throughout the day. Chris offered her a little pocket money to be his assistant, and she was thrilled to be on set and help out as much as possible!
The shoot was a blast. Aimee is really fun to work with and I really dug the freedom of shooting without much external lighting […] and I can’t stress enough how amazing it was to get the opportunity to show my kid what I do.
The results of the shoot were incredibly well-received, and Aimee loved the photos!
See more of Christopher’s work on his website.
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