I’ll even stage one if needed.

A racing gurney and looks of concern make me happy

I’ve been fortunate to have done most of my healthcare photography at major medical institutions. Mostly at University of California, Los Angeles and recently at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. These are major trauma and research centers. The places you want to go when you have a major health issue like a heart attack.

An EKG and exam in the emergency room

This series was shot to illustrate an integrated team approach to handling a heart attack from the arrival and evaluation in the ER and the examination and potential intervention in the angiogram suite.

Opening a blocked blood vessel in the angiogram suite

Even though this case was a simulated heart attack I always enjoy the challenge of making the cases look realistic. They need to pass “the hallway test” of colleagues who will see the photos when this “Report to the Community 2010″ is printed.

As fun as it is for me to shoot these emergent situations. An often overlooked part of healthcare is preventing problems in the first place. This could be teaching healthy eating practices in an elementary school.

Eating fruit and yogurt at a nutrition lesson

Or having a trusted relationship with your primary care doctor.

Personal interaction builds a bond of trust between patient and doctor

In real life, patient areas don’t have that refined TV look that you find on “House“, nor are research labs as stylish as they are on “Bones” and the “CSI” shows.

The first challenge is always to understand what’s going on in the lab and determine how to communicate that unique story. In this case the researcher is doing an advanced DNA screening of an individual patient to calculate the respond to an expensive chemotherapy medication. This is an early stage of personalized medicine.

DNA screening to match effective treatment for a chemotherapy drug

Having cancer is about more than how your DNA reacts to treatment, it’s also about how you deal with the emotional aspect of the disease.

A cancer survivor volunteers to hear patient's concerns

Prevention, bonding, research and emotional health are important part of care. I love showing it all.

But that still doesn’t beat sending a trauma team racing down the hall.

Trauma team racing down a hallway

All these photos were taken for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and were published in their “Report to the Community 2010″.  I’ll update the post when an on-line version is posted.

Mark Harmel

harmelphoto.com

@MarkHarmel

Another example of an environmental portrait that can also serve as a headshot. This time a simple hallway serves as our background and a blend of natural daylight and warm tungsten light on our subject provides the color variation. Similar to the HHMI fellows, this portrait can be cropped as a headshot as well as serve as a consistent portrait  location for the Cancer Care Associates team.

Our subject is Dr. David Chan, an excellent oncologist in the South Bay area of Los Angeles and a family friend (he and my wife trained together at Stanford).

Oncologist David Chan, M.D.

I recently spent a couple of days in his busy office creating images of patient care and research for his website and stock use. Look for those photos in my next post.

Mark Harmel
harmelphoto.com

I enjoy the challenge of shooting portraits of young medical researchers that need to serve a dual purpose. When Howard Hughes Medical Institute announces their new Gilliam Fellowship recipients they only run one very small headshot version on their website. But they often have other uses when they can run a full photo that includes more environment.

Angelica Riestra, HHMI Gilliam Fellow at UCLA

Here are two recent examples of this year’s recipients that were shot at UCLA. The portrait of Angelica Riestra shows how the same photo with a clean background can work successfully for a small headshot and yet has enough interesting information to be used in a larger feature format like the example of Ryan Dosumu-Johnson below.

Ryan Dosumu-Johnson, HHMI Gilliam Fellow at UCLA

I’ve since applied the style to corporate and academic leaders as well. I prefer the result better than the standard portrait in front of a studio background. What do you think – is it a smarter approach?

Mark Harmel
harmelphoto.com

Just before our current financial crisis entered possible meltdown territory I had the opportunity to spend a day in my financial advisor’s office taking what I call my modified candid photos of their office worklife that will be used in a company brochure and website.

I love doing this style of shooting. Part of the process is being a fly on the wall and capturing spontaneous interactions that happen in the hallway.

The other part involves going into specific offices and work areas, doing some improvements to the existing lighting and then direct the people to act naturally instead of posing. I find that the best method for this is to start with my staging and lighting and then help the person become reengaged with their job. Interacting with a co-worker on a real issue is often the best approach.

The client likes this because real work is accomplished in the process and my normally camera shy subjects return to using their real gestures and become engaged.

I’ve also learned the art of doing nothing. When a person is already looking natural and engaged I can concentrate on improving on the existing light and searching for interesting angles through gaps in monitors or in reflections.

Whether shooting on the street or in an office I always love how the environment can add to the story. In this case I get to use my fine art photo of the old Pacific Stock Exchange building as a way to tell the financial story of my client’s firm.

The original Pacific Stock Exchange photo. The San Francisco build is now being used as a Equinox fitness club.

Here are some page samples from one of the finished brochures:

Mark Harmel
harmelphoto.com
@MarkHarmel