Of all the images on my website, this is the one I get asked about the most. And the question almost always is, "Are those worms real or did you 'photoshop' them in?" Truth is, except for a tiny bit of the upper left hand corner, the image is as it came out of the camera -- on film! Here's the backstory...
The three guys in the original image started a bait company that grew to become an important supplier to fishing shops in the Midwest. As they showed us the rooms in which the worms were grown, I had an idea: would the guys mind if they looked as if they were standing chest-high in worms? They were enthusiastic; now I had to figure out how to do it.
We always have foamcore boards to use as reflectors. I decided to cut the board to the shape of the guys' shoulders, tape the sets together with gaffer tape, and then pile on a thin layer of worms. Of course, as hard as we tried to make the foamcore fit tightly to their shoulders, there were still areas where worms coould fall through. Our subjects didn't mind a bit, and my assistant Angie started piling on the worms while I climbed the ladder to guide her where I could see white foamcore. She did an amazing job, the magazine loved the shot, and so did the subjects!
