Goldman Sachs is in the news. Executives are on capital hill today to testify to whether they led investors astray by playing both sides of fence, aggressively selling mortgage derivative products while betting against them at the same time.
I photographed E. Gerald Corrigan, a Goldman Sachs partner and managing director, at the corporate headquarters in New York, in 2009.
I did two scenarios, one in a conference room adjacent to the hallway above and the other in the hallway. Both were setup and pre-lit in advance of the subject’s arrival, a needed step since he allotted me less than ten minutes. The conference room was the safer bet and led to a safer, less interesting, image. Corrigan conceded to the hallway image only because it was directly in his path out of the conference room.
The advantage of a bit of window light and the glow from behind made the image. I used only one light, an extra-small softbox with a grid to provide fill from camera left. The backlight glow is from a piece of artwork embedded in the wall and just peeking into the frame.
At the time it was late February, the economy had fully tanked the fall before. The golden glow seemed a nice play on Goldman Sachs’ name and it left room for the viewer to interpret the image as they saw fit.