Back into the corporate world

I've barely returned from far too long in a tiny village in the hills in eastern Europe, and I am ushered into one of the world's largest media companies HQ. The brief: a clean, sympatico portrait of its editor-in-chief, David Schlesinger of ThomsonReuters.

It's a small world. Ten years ago, I worked for the then wire service Reuters News Pictures, and David ran the Americas operations. Now I am freelance, and he is the overall boss and a committed journalist with an open mind set towards the future. We traded some names, I found out about some of my old colleagues' whereabouts and David was kind enough to give me the email address of my former boss. Saying hello cannot hurt, and I must admit that a certain - albeit very slight - nostalgia has crept in somewhere. After all, this is the place where I learned my trade, and I am forever grateful for that opportunity.

So yes, back to the picture. The room was practically dark, but the background of the photo had to be crisp white. So applying a little trickery in the form of a new photoshop layer could not be avoided, no matter how over the top I set the background flash bouncing off the white wall behind David. The shoot was uncomplicated, speed and accuracy was of the essence, just like in the old wire service days.