Fran Covogt

Rocco Commissio for Forbes Magazine

So when I got the call for this assignment I was excited, it was to be a possible cover story and not only that but its was in my backyard. Well Orange County anyway. The subject was Rocco Commissio the CEO of MediaCom, the 5th largest cable TV provider in the US. You would be forgiven if you have not heard of them as their market is primarily in the midwest. The shoot started with a phone call with myself the Forbes’ writer Noah Kirsh, and Rocco and his Communication Director. I wish I had a recording of this call, it went from funny to dramatic and back again in short form. Rocco had been photographed in the recent past and really did not like the job that was done. He felt that the photographer had done a very unflattering job on him. So my job on this call was to really assure Rocco that we were there to make him look good, to flatter him, as we did not have any other agenda. Noah, the story’s writer, also worked to calm Rocco down who was at this point needing to control the shoot in a way that would basically stop the shoot from happening. Most magazines unless they are photographing a star who is so big that they demand refusal rights on the images will not allow the subjects to steer the conversation both written and in photography. This is done to maintain some editorial control and to present in the manner they are designed to do. After hearing Rocco’s concerns I told him that we were shooting tethered to a computer and I would allow him to preview the shots and if he hated them we would shoot something else. I did tell him that I could not allow him to yay or nay the shoot though, that was the magazines job and even I as the photographer did not have a say in what images were going be selected. Eventually he relented and we set a shoot date.

Day of the shoot we showed up at 8:30 am and pulled up in front of a tremendous glass and steel modern building standing in the middle of nowhere. We met with the communications contact and were given a quick tour. After scouting much of the space we set up for the cover image first. These shots are usually done to a formatted look so not a lot to think about technically except making someone feel comfortable in a completely foreign land. Piece of cake, lol! The direction is the hard part here, due the way the cover image gets cropped. A fair amount of space above the subject is needed for the Forbes logo.

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