Nissan North America contacted me a few months ago and asked if I'd like to shoot some product shots of a heavily modified Nissan Titan they were going to use to send wounded warriors on adventures within Alaska. The request came in on a Wednesday. The challenge was that the truck needed to leave the following Monday for Alaska. That is an extremely compressed time frame to plan and execute a product shoot of this size. I told them that I was all-in for the project.
I remember hanging up the phone and immediately calling the folks at Vulcan Materials in Franklin, TN. Kevin McCarty answered the phone. I told him about the project and asked him if I could shoot the truck at their rock quarry in Franklin. He jumped into action. This was not a simple request. Rock quarries are heavily regulated by the government and have some of the strictest safety guidelines you'll ever encounter for a photography location. Kevin was a true warrior in the way that he was able to (a) convince his management team to allow us to do it, and (b) convince the government regulators that it could be done safely. In my opinion, Kevin worked a miracle. He called me back in the late afternoon the following day and told me that he was able to work it out. He only had one request. He wanted to be able to bring their veterans down to the shoot location to see the truck. I said no problem, let's do it. I told him that I would even shoot some pictures of Vulcan's veterans with the truck for their internal news magazine.
Looking back on the project, there was no better location for this truck. This thing was a beast. When I pulled into the quarry there were rocks the size of houses. It was the perfect location for the shoot.
As you can see from the photos, this was a spectacular location. One of the constant challenges during the shoot was trying to keep the truck clean. At the very end, we didn't even try to clean, we just shot it dirty. And, wow - it looked good dirty!
This was an amazing project to work on. One of the best moments of the day was when the veterans that work for Vulcan joined us at one of the locations to look at the truck. They were so happy to be a part of this project. I really enjoyed getting to meet them and hear their stories.
Thanks to everyone who helped make this shoot a huge success. The folks at Vulcan Material really went the extra mile to make this happen, and I couldn't have asked to work with a better group of guys.