Guest Photographer
at SAMC

The McKesson company is a vendor for a wide array of hospital supplies, ranging from wheelchairs to software solutions and beyond. In fact, they're the single largest health care corporation in the world. Because of SAMC's positive working relationship with them, McKesson had asked if they could feature our hospital, doctors and staff in a national ad campaign. Most of you will never see these ads because they'll appear in radiology trade publications but it's certainly a good thing for the Medical Center to be featured prominently in this campaign. McKesson is a major player in the health care industry, in fact they're a Fortune 18 company and their reach spreads far and wide.


The McKesson team included four people...two representatives from the marketing group (Laurie and Judy), a commercial photographer named Daemon Baizan and his assistant Kip. It's nice for me to have guest photographers come into the house periodically because it exposes me to a different, fresh approach to photography. Daemon has a great eye and LOADS of creativity. For example, he rigged up his studio flash unit to a wheelchair (powered by a battery pack) and had Kip pull him along in the wheelchair as SAMC Emergency Department medical director Dr. James C. Jones walked purposefully down the hallway. Daemon got some great images using this setup.


It was also interesting to see how Daemon approached lighting. I won't bore you with all the details other than to say he used some techniques that I'll try to incorporate into my arsenal from now on. Rest assured, he has LOTS of arrows in his quiver and he's an excellent professional photographer.

Coach Bobby Pierce

(No relation)

My job as media relations coordinator at SAMC led to a busy, but fun day on Tuesday, July 29. Each year in late August, the hospital sponsors a Community Health Fair for Men, providing free health screenings for local men. The screenings include PSA screenings for prostate cancer, cholesterol and thyroid, glucose, and blood pressure screening. Height/Weight/Body Fat analysis is also available, as is stroke assessment and vision testing, all free of charge. For more information, go here.

Each year a local celebrity serves as spokesman for the Community Health Fair for Men and this year's spokesman is Bobby Pierce, head baseball coach at Troy University. Coach Pierce is a native of Marianna, Florida and is probably one of the top rising stars in NCAA baseball coaching ranks. In 19 years of coaching, he's never had a losing season and his teams have won championships at almost every stop.

For the health fair, SAMC does a local media tour and news conference with the spokesman every year and Tuesday was the day for that. First we took Coach Pierce to WTVY-TV's studios to tape a couple of segments with local broadcasting icon Ann Varnum. After that, we went back to the hospital for the news conference at 10 a.m. Then it was off to WDHN-TV's studios for a 30-minute live interview on Charlie Platt's Tri-States Today program. Charlie interviewed Pierce, Dr. Robert Schuyler (a urologist with Urological Associates of Dothan) and myself about prostate cancer, men's health in general, and details about the Community Health Fair for Men.
After lunch, we had one other taping, back at WTVY's studios, with news anchor Reginald Jones. Reginald has a 30-minute public affairs show called "Weekend Edition." This taping included Coach Pierce and SAMC director of Community Relations Mark Stewart. When the "Weekend Edition" taping was over, I had to hurry back to the Medical Center to meet a group of people from McKesson who would spend the next day interviewing and photographing some of the hospital's doctors and staff for an ad campaign for their company.

KILLER VIDEO!

Wes and Susan Morgan of M3 Productions, Dothan's ONLY true high-def video production company, call me occasionally to help out with their work. I first met Wes and Susan when they moved to Dothan in 1988 to work with First Choice Video Productions and Cable Advertising. Wes took me under his wing at that time and helped me to learn the basics of "real" videography and television production. I'll never forget that and to this day I appreciate him taking the time to show me the ropes. My career since then has largely been based on the principles I learned under him. I consider Wes and Susan dear friends and they absolutely have THE BEST video production company in the area. By a long shot.

Wes and Susan had been working on a video project for local clothing manufacturer Southeastern Performance Apparel and asked me to work as Director of Photography for a photo shoot they had booked with the company. My job for the day was to help get the set and lighting in place and to get the models posed while Susan actually made the photos. (SUSAN!!! Sorry for showing your backside, but I wanted to include this photo of you in action!)


We had five models--Nikki, Natasha, Rachel, Raven and Kelli--who would demonstrate eight different bridesmaid's dresses from Southeastern Apparel. Our job was to photograph the group, wearing the dresses so that brides could get a good idea of how the dresses would look on several girls together.


We had a great day of photography, the models seemed to enjoy the work (they even sang and danced for us!) and the folks from Southeastern Apparel were very pleased with the on-camera previews that Susan showed them throughout the session.


Susan also showed the models a few of the shots so they could see how good they looked on camera.

SAMC Annual Report

We're working on the finishing touches for Southeast Alabama Medical Center's 2007 Annual Report. Most of you know that I work at SAMC during the day and that Morning Light Photography is a side business for me. At the Medical Center, I serve primarily as media relations coordinator (dealing with the news media on a daily basis) and I'm also the hospital's photographer. Life at work stays pretty interesting for me to say the least!

The concept for this year's annual report is different from past years and though I don't want to give that secret away, I will say that I have had the chance to try some unique things in the way of photographic style. We're using a more gritty, action-oriented approach to the photography and it's been lots of fun. My assignment for the day included a photo of SAMC Foundation executive director Valerie Barnes. Here she is, leading a group of local businesspeople on a tour of the hospital.


I also went to the hospital's basement to photograph some of the "unseen" aspects of SAMC. I met up with some of the guys from Plant Services who keep the building running in tiptop condition and made several images of them at work. I think this one is my favorite of the group.


After I left Plant Services, I walked around the corner to the laundry. You wouldn't believe the amount of laundry that gets washed, dried, pressed and folded every day at SAMC. It's mind boggling to see it in action. As usual, I made lots of images in the laundry and this is my favorite. However, I'll be surprised if it shows up in the annual report because there's another photo that will probably "fit" the theme of the report a little better.

A Printing Press

and a Pink Room

Tuesday, July 22 meant another afternoon of photos for Wiregrass Christian Family magazine. I met Katy from WCF at Hardwick & Sons Printing for a profile photo of owner Jack Hardwick (Do YOU know Jack?) and also a photo of Jack with his talented staff.


I climbed a ladder to get a group photo of Jack and his staff around one of their printing presses and guess what...it's EXTREMELY hot near the ceiling of their press room. I know this because I spent lots of time with my head about six inches below that ceiling.


And while I'm talking about Hardwick & Sons Printing, let me recommend them to you if you're ever in need of having anything printed. They do top notch work. In fact, they do the printing for Wiregrass Christian Family magazine, among other things.

From Hardwick & Sons, we went to the home of Yolanda and daughter Mabry (who has the pinkest room I've ever seen). They had collaborated to create a unique bulletin board for Mabry's room and you guessed it, my job was to get some nice photos of the board for the magazine. Again, I don't want to spoil the story for the magazine but I will share a photo of the two of them.