Lighting 3,000 People

Yes, you read that right – Gregory Heisler shot last week’s cover of Sports Illustrated featuring 3,000 Bostonians at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. And he lit it.

How do you decide on the quality of light for 3,000 people?

When you work with light, you have the ability to completely set a tone and a mood—people have all sorts of associations with different kinds of light that are often completely unconscious. We think of certain kinds of light as uplifting or depressing or sad, just like in music: pieces in a minor key make you feel kind of sad. This was all about being in a major key, where it was happy and uplifting and upbeat and bright and fresh and sparkling and felt like a new dawn, without actually saying any of that.

Heisler is one of my heroes.