ST SEBASTIAN’S

Shot in Bangalore, India, for an Annual Report to illustrate the
emerging bio-tech industry in the country. © Tim Llewellyn.
major. at was the semester I took Photography III, IV, and V
simultaneously! at's a lot of time in the darkroom. By the time I
was graduated I had learned a whole lot, but was particularly pale.
How has digital photography changed the way you shoot?
How has it changed the process?
digital photography has changed things. It has incredibly sped
up the pace of everything from beginning to end. When I was
shooting film a typical shoot would go like this: I'd set everything up,
shoot a Polaroid, wait 90 seconds for it to develop, make a small
change, shoot another Polaroid, wait another 90 seconds. By the
time I would be ready to shoot film, I would have already spent a
half hour waiting for Polaroids to develop. en I would have to
shoot lots and lots of film to make sure I had the shot covered. en
I'd wait a day for the film to be developed.
Almost all of this has gone away with the advent of digital
photography. Now I set up, shoot, and immediately know what
needs to be fixed. Also, now there is usually an art director on hand
to tell me immediately if the shot works. Right now, for example,
I'm in a hotel in Toronto and just finished shooting for a company's
annual report. When I got back to the room earlier, I downloaded
the memory cards and emailed samples to the design firm. I'll have
approval within a few hours.
What shoots have you found to be most interesting? What
made them so interesting?
I've had several assignments that I've found to be particularly
interesting, and they were all pretty different.
e one that I will always be proudest of was the year I spent as
President Obama's personal campaign photographer in New
Hampshire. I started working with the campaign shortly aer
Obama announced his candidacy in Illinois. I was connected to it
through fellow St. Sebastian's alumnus Mike Cuzzi ’94. I
photographed Obama whenever he was in New Hampshire. To
have been so closely involved with the campaign and to watch it
grow from a small grassroots organization into the incredible
phenomenon that it became was something I will never, ever forget.
I will forever be in debt to Mike for bringing me onboard, and I will
always be proud of both my involvement in the campaign and the
work I produced that year.
I think my most interesting corporate assignment came in 2007
when I travelled around the world for a bio-tech company, shooting
in Hong kong and Bangalore, India. It was a great leap of faith for
the design firm that sent me - it was one of my first international
assignments and a grueling way to start. I flew from Boston to
China, landed and spent a day and half there before I got back on
the plane and flew to India. I was there for a little over forty-eight
hours before I was on the plane back to Boston. It felt like I spent
more time in airports and on planes than I did on the ground. But it
all worked out and one of the photographs from the shoot won entry
into the Communication Arts Photography Annual, which is a real
honor. ey get something like 15,000 entries for around 150 spots.
Another interesting shoot was in 2009 when my wife and I
travelled to Tanzania to volunteer for a uS-based nonprofit called
Epic Change. eir mission is to empower local leaders to make real
changes by helping them tell their stories to the world. We spent
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