Last month I photographed Matt Plaskoff for a cover story in Remodeling Magazine, a trade magazine focusing on, you guessed it, remodeling. Plaskoff was being honored as the 2010 Fred Case Entrepreneur of the Year for his achievements with his One-Week Bath business in Gardena, Calif. When I first received the assignment, I learned that Plaskoff, who also owns a business remodeling high-end homes, was for a time working with the Extreme Home Makeover show, and I was curious if he had worked on the show featuring Jake Grys and family, whom I did a story on a few years ago as they were waiting to get on the show. It turns out he was not working with them at the time, but at least it gave us something to break the ice with as the shoot got underway. The initial suggestion for the cover shot was to shoot him in the showroom bathroom known as One Week Bath University. This is where employees are trained to remodel bathrooms in a one-week time frame and is also a spot where he had been shot numerous times before. It was a sure thing, but also a safe one. Since it was requested, we started there and then moved in to his on-site warehouse to shoot a few alternatives. After shooting a few images there, I thought we were done and was getting ready to pack up. For some reason though, I followed him into his office and looked up on the wall, noticing a giant rubber ducky painted on the wall. I had been in there briefly in the morning, but was apparently not yet awake and had hardly taken notice of it. Now that my eyes were open, it was an obvious spot to take a shot that I knew would stand out from the rest. I asked him what the significance was (not that it mattered as I really wanted that shot!) and he told me it was more or less the company mascot. Which, of course, made sense and made it all the more important that we do one more photo there. He laughed at the idea, but was a great sport. Once seated he started playing around, mixing up straight faced looks and smiles, and propping his feet up on the table like he owned the place. I was hoping the magazine would appreciate the photo, but at best thought they might use it inside. I was pleasantly surprised, then, when I saw that they’d used it as the cover! An excellent decision! The rest of the piece also turned out well and can be seen after the jump.
