Santi Visalli Talks About His Photographs

This photo of the New York Stock Exchange was one of the most difficult that I ever produced. The first time I was on the trading floor, I realized immediately that the message I wanted to convey was that of a beehive. Everyone was running around like a swarm of bees.

First, I had to get the approval of the public relations people, then the floor manager, then the building engineer, and finally the Stock Exchange's insurance company, which wouldn't even consider allowing me to do this job with less than $5 million in coverage. All these steps had to be done in writing, and the whole process took about three months.

In order to actually take the picture, I had to suspend the camera from the ceiling, 90 feet above the floor. Now, there were more problems. I had to get the electricians to remove one of the large reflector bulbs so my camera could be put through the rosette. The camera then had to be fastened to a 4-foot T-bar that could be dropped below the ceiling, so it was now 4 feet from me and could be operated only by remote control. Lighting was another problem; there were three sources of light on the trading floor, making good filtration almost impossible. To solve this, I added an amber filter, clicked my remote, and prayed. Someone listened.