I was recently contacted by the senior designer for e.Republic | Smart Media for Public Sector Innovation for a photo shoot for the annual Heath and Human Services special report. It is a research report from the Governing Institute and Center for Digital Government.

This year they featured Arkansas own Dr. William Golden, Medical Director for Arkansas Medicaid.

I photographed Dr. Golden at the Arkansas Department of Human Services building in downtown Little Rock. My client e-mailed me a few PDFs of what they used in past issues so I wanted to keep with a consistent look. Many of the sample she sent me were pretty conservative.

After looking around the DHS building, I opted for three locations. I took a chance and used DHS' bright orange stairwell. You don't see things like this too often in a state-run building. I also asked Dr. Golden to wear favorite suit and bring a clean and pressed lab coat.

This is the feedback I received from my client,

"I love the orange! It's not something that you are used to seeing and I think it is a nice change. I also love that you had Dr. Golden wear different clothes."

Below is the original photo, plus the "safe" option they used in their table of contents. I thought for sure they'd use the literal shot, but I am so glad they opted for something different.