After arriving at the airport in Germany the art director, myself and my assistant were met by a rep from the factory that services high speed trains in Hamburg. It was a cool rainy foggy day. We got our equipment together, rented a car and our rep Hans told us to follow him on the Autobahn to our finial destination. We started out at about 8o kilometers an hour (50 mph) down a long stretch of open road. As time went on our speed increased to 120 kilometers and then to our top speed of 135 kph (83.885 mph). My assistant was sweating like his life was about to end because of the slick weather conditions and my heart was starting to pump like their was no tomorrow! If we were driving to the moon at this speed that would be fine but we are struck on Earth for the time being with some basic rules to follow to remain alive. Did you know driving at 70mph to the moon would take you about 149 days?

Well after an adrenaline charged drive of about 1 1/2 hrs. we arrived at our destination. We took our usual 50 cent tour to get an overview of the massive facility. The art director and I discussed and identified some areas of interest to be photographed. We then went upstairs to meet the head of operations with our rep. The art director and I stayed outside his office as Hans went in first to meet discuss the photography to be done at this facility. Within a minute the door abruptly swung open with papers flying in the air and the operations head man saying a very strong tone of voice, “YOUR PAPERS ARE NOT IN ORDER”! If you add the German pronunciation inflections I felt I was in a World II Movie or at least in an an episode of Hogans Heroes. Could it be that this entire shoot could be cancelled just like that, believe me anything is possible! Luckily the door closed and everything went silent and for about 15 minutes. When the door oped again the two men were like two best buddies. It was like a transformation or some kind of epiphany had just occurred. I never did ask Hans what happened in there.

Oh the shoot I almost forgot about that. Thank God we got the green light to start our shooting. Next were assigned a representative named Hildergard who would escort us around the facility and help us with anything we needed for the photo shoot. The art director at this point was reluctant to ask too much of anyone but I developed a little rapport with her and I knew exactly where I wanted take my photo. Some equipment had to be moved out of the way to get a clear shot and she helped us accomplish that. I set up my strobe light with my radio slave with a long lens to compress the scene and the AD became the worker in the shot. Everybody was pleased with results.