Photographer: Kevin Shea
Submitted By: Jeff Heerman, Senior Marketing Coordinator, Swinerton Builders, San Francisco

This shot from the 399 Fremont project in San Francisco—a 2016 ENR Best Project in the residential/hospitality category—is one of Shea’s favorites. “I’m retired and having the photographic time of my life,” says Shea. “Taking this photo was a peak experience.” He says he shot workers building the project, which was completed early this year, “from the time it was an empty lot until there were flowers in the finished lobby.” He knew big rebar cages would be flown in on the morning of this shot, but the best vantage point was two blocks away on another contractor’s site. He was hoping to talk his way onto an upper floor of the other project and mentioned it to a supervisor, who smiled and introduced him to his cousin, a supervisor at the other site. Eight minutes after he got positioned, “suddenly, there’s the rebar wall hovering over the crew at the top. I was thinking, ‘keep shooting ... wait for an arm to reach out for the rope.’ Well, two arms reached out—I’ve always liked the tension of the reach out that hasn’t quite touched yet. ISO 400 @ f7.1 gave me a sufficient depth of field at that distance as well as a shutter speed of 1/1250 second.”