Unilever's Sustainable Living Plan

I've spent the past fortnight working on photos for the release of Unilever's Sustainable Living Plan, which happened on Monday. It was the first time I've been behind the scenes of a major multinational company running a large media event, and it was pretty impressive. Jonathan Dimbleby chaired the morning, and the video production was very slick.

I photographed Paul Polman (Unilever's CEO) and Dave Lewis (President of Unilever's Americas arm) with the company's new Pureit water filter as part of the build up to Monday's event. I love these sorts of shoots, as you're lucky if you get five minutes with the person before they are whisked off to face their next challenge. So - lots of prep, prelighting and hunting around for people the same size as the subject to stand in for the test shots. There was a massive reflection of the 5' octa on the window behind Paul (top picture). Unilever's London office has a lot of glass - so rather than fight it, I lined up the reflection with the top of the filter unit to block it out and backlight the water. Check out the lighting on the glass in his hand!