Longtime Opera Tampa and Straz Center photographer Rob Bovarnick reveals the secrets behind capturing that Pearl Fishers photo.
Cardboard box. Plastic bag. Three thousand white beads …
What sounds like either the making of a Mardi Gras costume or the making of a very bizarre murder comprised the basic backstage ingredients of one of the most popular graphic concepts in Straz history. Inspired by Annie Leibovitz’s iconic photograph of Whoopi Goldberg submerged in a tub of milk, the “face” of the Opera Tampa 2018-2019 season became, literally, a face. Seen everywhere from region-wide advertising to billboards along I-275, the “Pearl Fishers photo” has created an unexpected bit of buzz for its arresting, unusual beauty—very much like the opera itself.
The driving forces of The Straz’s in-house ad agency and PR firm are VP of Marketing Summer Bohnenkamp, Senior Director of Communications Paul Bilyeu and Creative Director Mei Crain. Prior to each season, they brainstorm with individual marketers to determine the creative “look” of opera, Broadway, Club Jaeb … everything. Last spring, Paul showed the photo of Whoopi for his pitch for the concept of a woman’s face emerging from a sea of pearls. It flew. He called longtime freelance photographer and friend Rob Bovarnick of Rob-Harris Productions, explained the idea and Rob began to visualize the shot.
“We determined early on we wanted to use real beads, not photoshop them in after the fact,” Rob explains. “We carefully discussed the size of the pearls because we wanted it to look correct, scale-wise. We always need enough room for all types of marketing uses. Whether it be on billboard, which is usually a longer horizontal format, or on a vertical brochure. So, we brought multiple sizes of cardboard boxes to the shoot. We found the right shape and height for the model’s head. Since we were “floating” her head within the box, we used a plastic bag to seal the box which made a pillow for her head to sit in. We made sure she didn’t have any strain on her neck; then once we got that adjusted, we could start adding the pearls.”
The model, Mischa Temaul, had to keep her head perfectly still while Rob took the photos, otherwise the shifting pearls would ruin the picture. “It was like going to get a CAT scan. You have to hold extremely still, but she did great. We found that the overhead view was more dramatic and more universal for a multi-use in advertising. You have to think about leaving enough space for copy.”
Rob should know. He’s been creating most of the Opera Tampa promotional photos since 2006, when he landed Romeo and Juliet as his first assignment for the company. “We love working with The Straz. We appreciate when there’s something different, and we have to figure out how to make it happen. I’ve been working with Summer, Paul and Mei and the rest of the staff for so many years, about 13 years. There’s a comfort level with having us just run with their ideas.
And it’s great for us, we love the problem-solving challenge of trying to create something really unique.”
Rob-Harris Name Explained
Many people think Rob Harris is one person when, in fact, it’s two. Here’s the story:“I started my business in 1987 with my former University of Tampa college photography professor, Lew Harris. When we were coming up with ideas for company names, we both felt that Rob Harris had a better “ring” to it than Harris Bovarnick. Shortly after naming our company, we went to a local bank to open a business checking account. The first think the bank teller asked us was “which one of you is Rob Harris?” That’s when we decided to put the slash in between Rob and Harris: Rob/Harris. Since the beginning of the digital age, we have had to change the slash to a dash and add Photography and Video in addition to Productions for better search engine optimization.” – Rob Bovarnick