New York City Corporate Team Page Headshots-
I don’t know where to start with this one it’s so good. People tell me I have a penchant for talking in circles, but I think I can make this work. I received a call from Everydayhero – a Blackbaud company – to shoot their corporate team page headshots in both San Francisco and New York. And then from New York, head to Charleston, SC to do the remainder of the team down there. Right before leaving, I got news that an enormous blizzard was going to hit the area on shoot day.
I try and take weather reports with a grain of salt but this one seemed to be accurate even from a week out. Since I ticketed myself already and the scheduled the shoot, I conferred with the company and decided to chance it. Hoping that the weather wouldn’t be as severe as the reports were making it out to be.
Well…. That was a bad idea.
The Reality
I flew into NYC the day before the shoot (and the expected blizzard) to a beautiful, yet frigid day. It barely seemed like there was pending doom on the horizon. It was a hectic day of flying and transferring with a good amount of gear, but I got through it and even had time to spare to have dinner with one of my best friends. That’s when things started to change.
A few hours past midnight, the snow and wind started, and by dawn it looked like the arctic. It was very calming with the city streets being clear of the usual noise and crowds, but the whole city basically shut down. Not even restaurants were open. Clearly my shoot was cancelled, and I was only there for a limited time. If I were to do corporate team page headshots, I’d have to find my way through this mess.
To make matters worse, I had to fly out the next day to Charleston for the corporate team page shoot at Blackbaud HQ. There was no way of knowing if the airports would even be open, let alone my plane even taking off. So there was a good chance that my trip to shoot this company would end up a total bust.
A Mix of Good and…
Well, the next day the airport was open and incredibly my flight was on time. What a miracle. That is, until we left the gate to take off. I noticed that we were just sitting on the runway for what seemed like an inordinate amount of time when finally the captain came on and told us we were having engine issues. Now, I’d prefer to have engine issues on the ground rather than in air, so I was relieved on that matter. But now it looked like the only timely thing that would happen on this trip would end up again in limbo.
Luckily mechanics fixed it two hours later and we we taxied back out. I was on track for Charleston. Until again it happened. We were sitting on the runway for another inordinate period of time. Finally (again), the captain got on and told us we were having the same engine issue. But this time would be different. They weren’t going to try and fix it. They took the plane out of service, with no follow-up on if there would be a replacement. We were all just playing it by ear.
The Up Side
Now, I’ve been on the receiving side of the airline industry just looking out for it’s bottom line and doing the bare minimum to please its customers, but this time they made up for it. Airport vouchers galore to everyone. And to top it all off, just as we thought they stranded us, we got another plane (a newer one, too) and it was at the next gate over. All we had to do was spend our vouchers and we would be on our way.
Though I arrived in Charleston 5 hours too late – and too late to enjoy the city – I made my shoot the following morning, and from then on the trip East came into place. I also managed to get some great photos of some great people for their corporate team page headshots. Take a look.
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