january 2007 - Professional Photographer Magazine

on the region’s residents. “It’s the psychology
of how these folks live,” he explains. “They
have a lot of depression, and I spent a lot of
time looking at that lifestyle.”
Another adventurous assignment took
McNally to the tip of the antenna atop the
Empire State Building to photograph the
man whose job it is to change the light bulb
there. He climbed that antenna five times in
pursuit of the perfect shot.
How does one prepare for such diverse
assignments? The key, McNally says, is to
plan for potential pitfalls. “I really try to think
my way into a story. I try to be responsible as
a photojournalist, by reaching out and
finding out what’s really going on in this
particular place. Spending a length of time in
the field gives you a better understanding of
the story and increases people’s trust in you.”
Adverse weather is one those potential
pitfalls. On assignment to shoot a Space
Shuttle launch, McNally positioned five
Nikon digital SLRs around the launch pad,
all to be remotely triggered during lift-off.
Everything looked good to go until a sudden
gale-force storm blew in, battering the equipment.
McNally ran into the storm to attempt
a rescue, but what equipment hadn’t been
destroyed in the wind and rain had been
washed into the saltwater estuary nearby.
“That was not a good phone call to Discover
magazine,” laughs McNally. “I had to tell them
that I totally destroyed five of their cameras
in one shot. That was one of my worst days.”
In perhaps McNally’s most complicated
shoot to date, he had to photograph Vanessa
Williams’ complete character transformation
in her Broadway performance in Kiss of the
Spider Woman. He shot through her 13
costume changes, and came out with one 13stage
multiple exposure on a single frame of
film. “There was absolutely no retouching or
computer work,” he says.
No matter the circumstances, acing
complex assignments is a challenge McNally
meets head on. “I never shied away from the
complicated,” he says. And it’s true; from
choreographing a crowd of synchronized skydivers
mid-air to capturing flawless
underwater portraits, McNally earned his
reputation for pulling off the impossible. “Once
you do a couple of complicated shots, you get
known as the ‘complicated guy,’” he says.
Complex on a different level is McNally’s
“Faces of Ground Zero—Giant Polaroid
Collection.” A series of nine-foot Polaroid
images, the collection showcases full-body
portraits of the heroes of September 11.
“Like many, I was searching for a way to
McNally shot through Williams’
13 costume changes, and came
out with one 13-stage multiple
exposure on a single frame of film.
“There was absolutely no retouching
or computer work,” he says.