My assignment: Art-directing a cover photo for up! Magazine to illustrate a feature on the Caribbean vacation spot of Trinidad and Tobago. Arriving in Port of Spain, Trinidad, at 7:30 p.m., our small team — up! associate editor Jill Foran, freelance photographer Alain Hottat and I — meets up with our guide, Andrew, at a roadside corn-soup stand. He briefs us on the highlights of our pending tour of the city.
I’m already focused — I need to get a cover shot for our January 2013 issue in the next 48 hours. And I’m not going back to Canada without one.
Our first stop is a “pan yard,” to watch a steel-drum orchestra. Andrew explains how these steel-drum bands are at the centre of Trinidadian culture, how they are fiercely competitive with each other, and how they hone their skills all year to dazzle locals and tourists alike at Carnival.
The evening is waning. I know in order to properly depict Trinidad on the cover I will need to connect with one of these players. I show Andrew the cover concept I had quickly mocked up before leaving Calgary. Understanding our needs and time constraints immediately, he snaps into action and we are loaded into the van.
We’re heading to Belmont, a suburb on the north side of Port of Spain that’s reputedly the birthplace of “pan,” or steel-drum music.
We enter a small yard and I see our cover personality instantly: Clive Telemaque, an established musician who now spends a lot of his time travelling, introducing steel drums to different cultures around the world. I set up a time with Clive to meet us on the final day of our tour for a photo shoot on the rooftop of the Hyatt hotel in downtown Port of Spain.
Photographer Alain and I go to the rooftop early to make sure the sun won’t be behind our subject. But it’s not the sun that worries us — it’s the approaching rain. We need to raise him and his drum above the height of the concrete barrier wall to make the shot work. We work fast, and in the end everything goes off without a hitch. The hotel is extremely accommodating and brings up a small metre-high stage, and Alain “borrows” the white sheet off his bed — a great makeshift reflector for the sun’s light.
The cover shoot is a success. The photo above is an outtake from the session. You’ll see the final selection on up!‘s January 2013 cover.