Store openings always look effortless once the doors finally open. The signs are up, the clothes are in place and everything looks ready for customers.
What people don’t see is how much work happens before that moment.
I first had the opportunity to work with Primark here in the McAllen area. When they began preparing to open their second Texas location at Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso, their team invited me to fly out and help document the store and opening week.
This wasn’t only about showing up for the ribbon cutting.
Before the store opened, I photographed it department by department. That included the larger views of the sales floor, individual displays, mannequins, signs, merchandise, checkout areas and many of the smaller details the team had spent so much time getting right.
Primark had team members come in from the East Coast to help prepare the store. They were styling displays, organizing merchandise and going back through every section to make sure everything was where it needed to be.
A jacket being moved a few inches or a display being adjusted may not sound like a big deal, but those small details are what make a finished store look put together. Customers may never notice each individual detail, but they notice when the whole space feels right.
Photographing the store also required a little more planning than one of my regular assignments.
I normally travel with several cameras, strobes, light stands and other equipment. Flying across Texas with all of that isn’t always practical, so I had to decide what I could bring, what I could leave behind and how to work with the lighting already inside the store.
Some sections were bright. Others had illuminated signs, reflective surfaces or mixed lighting that had to be handled differently. I couldn’t use the same setup for every department, so I adjusted as I moved through the store.
That is part of commercial photography that people don’t always see. Sometimes you have plenty of room and every piece of equipment you could possibly need. Other times, you work with what fits on the plane and figure out the rest once you get there.
By the time the ribbon-cutting day arrived, the store was ready and there was a lot of excitement around the opening. Primark is already well known throughout Europe, but it is still growing its presence here in the United States. For many people in El Paso, this was their first chance to shop at one without having to leave the US.
My job that day was to document the full story—the finished store, the Primark team, the ribbon cutting, the people attending and the excitement surrounding the opening.
For a company opening a new location, those photographs have a life beyond opening day. They can be used for news coverage, social media, company reports, recruiting, future presentations and to show the work that went into bringing the project together. They also give the employees and teams involved a record of what they accomplished.
This was my first assignment in El Paso, and I’m thankful that the work I had previously done for Primark in McAllen led to the invitation.
Thank you to the Primark team for trusting me to travel with my equipment and help document such an important week. It was a fun project, a good challenge and hopefully not my last opportunity to work in El Paso.
