Hero Shot

I'll admit, when I first heard the expression "hero shot" about 10 years ago, I didn't know what it meant. Mainly because I only started shifting more towards commercial photographer in the past decade after nearly 20 years doing editorial work. While the term was unfamiliar, the idea is pretty straight forward: make a good image. This was especially true back in the days of print when I worked regularly for The New York Times (see here) and a story typically only ran with one or two images in both print and online, even after a week of shooting. Your hope was always as a front pager, one on the inside.

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In this case it was a hero shot of Par Pacific's oil and gas refinery in Tacoma, Washington I needed to capture, and when you get a whole day of "bluebird" skies with Mount Rainier behind, you can't go wrong. After the 'heroes' were bagged I moved onto shooting the rest of the plant, it's maritime and train facilities along with the folks who keep the place running. All for the company's annual report, shot over two days.

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