I’m a certified professional photographer and own Cleary Creative Photography. Most of my professional work is photographing people, but I also create artwork for companies. One of my clients is Kettering Health Network. Each time they build a new facility in an area, I have been asked to create landscape photographs of the region surrounding the town to hang on the walls inside the new building. Kettering Health Dayton hospital is located just north of downtown Dayton, and on the roof is a cross with lights on it. Except, the hospital had never turned on the lights. They decided to turn on the lights and asked me to create an artistic photograph of the building showing the lighted cross on the roof. I have heard the statement from many customers, “Dan, you’re the artist. We trust that you will come up with something creative.”
My first step was to scout the location and see what I had to work with. I took this test photograph of the building with my phone’s camera. The picture has many wires in the sky and traffic at all hours of the day and night. So that angle wasn’t going to work. The Miami River goes through downtown Dayton, and the hospital is close to the river. When I walked along the riverbank in Downtown Dayton, I found a spot that showed the sign on the building and the cross. Now I had to decide what time of the day worked best for the photograph.
I took a few pictures right at dusk, but the illuminated sign on the building and the cross weren’t bright enough. For the lit cross to show up, I had to take the picture about 30-40 minutes after sunset. I had to let the sky get almost black before the sign and cross would show up in my photograph. My final exposure was 45 seconds long. The darker the sky and the longer the exposure, the more magical the photograph became. The opposite levy of the river is lined with lamps, and they now create beautiful linear reflections in the water.
I didn’t know why the hospital wanted a photograph showing the illuminated cross, and they made a 36″ print to hang up inside the building. A few months later, I was asked how large I could make the photograph? They wanted to use the photograph as an 18-foot mural in the emergency department’s waiting room. I wanted to see the finished installation, and when I was there, an older woman was sitting in one of the chairs. I asked if she minded moving while I took a photograph. She got up, looked at the wall, and said, “That’s nice. How long did it take you to paint that?” You can see more artwork I have created for other clients at www.ClearyFineArtPhoto.com.
