Pam McLean Cruises To The Top

A passport heavy with stamps, Pam McClean has traveled to the world’s most beautiful destinations for business (a maybe just a bit of pleasure).  Her career as a commercial photographer has afforded her the opportunity to visit idyllic locales from Alaska to Tahiti to Italy and beyond. 

Recently Pam was commissioned by Uniworld Cruise Lines to do a shoot for a new brochure advertising their recently launched riverboat cruises in Portugal and Italy.  She had chased the client for about six months before she was finally able to convince them to take a chance and hire an American photographer to do the shoot as opposed to a cheaper, more local European photographer. 

So, Pam packed her bags and flew across the pond.  The Portugal shoot was a breeze, as she was primarily shooting the ship’s architecture and there were no hiccups.  It wasn’t until she hopped a tiny, rickety plane with her two crew members and flew to Venice that the shoot got a bit tricky. 

The plan was to sail from Venice to Verona, passing through iconic cities like Bologna, Vicenza, and Padua.  Pam’s mission was to get amazing lifestyle shots on the water and in the cities.  “Italy was fabulous, and it was so easy to get permits to shoot there.  Venice and Verona both have awesome film commissions that allowed my small crew to pull permits with no problem.”  Although the human element of the shoot presented no issues, mother nature had other plans. 

Due to the innumerable bridges on the Po River, it was critical for the ship to leave dock before the waters rose too high for the ship to pass safely underneath a particularly low bridge outside Verona.  If not, they would have been stuck on the wrong side!  The ship cleared the overpass by mere inches, but once on the other side, it had no place to dock.  The boat had no choice but to anchor in the river until the waters receded and they were able to transfer to an available dock the next morning.  This monkey wrench delayed Pam and her crew almost half a day, and they didn’t make it to their shoot location (Juliet’s balcony in Verona) by their reserved shooting time.  Knowing she still had to get the shots, Pam bought tickets like any other tourist and did the entire photo shoot amid throngs of sightseers and schoolchildren all craning for a glimpse of the famous balcony.  A few hours of guerilla-style shooting later, the small crew was able to get the shots they needed.

Thanks to the efforts of Pam and her team, Uniworld Cruises absolutely loved the final product.  In fact, within hours of the brochure hitting shelves, Pam got a call to shoot next year’s brochure.  Talk about instant karma!

For more of Pam’s luxurious lifestyle work, visit her FoundFolios portfolio.