In the month after I shot my breakout work, I got my first assignment - portajohns!  I was to rapidly learn a lot about the portajohn industry after an email from a magazine I’d never heard of - Portable Restroom Operator - offering $350 to shoot a package for an update on a story on a major area business I’d never previously heard of: Piedmont Portables.
   So I arranged to shoot Piedmont Portables.  Most of the assignment went smoothly - though I ended up there three times to get more photos and captions for the Wisconsin-based industrial magazine. 
   But the key photo of the assignment - a cover photo of a Piedmont Portables portajohn sited on a construction site - was unobtainable.  As I explained to the client, nobody was doing construction in this area then, and some major building projects had simply been abandoned.  So I told the magazine’s editorial staff to contact Piedmont Portables itself for confirmation that nobody was doing construction then here - which they explained.
   The magazine arranged with Piedmont Portables for the portajohn company itself to provide that cover photo as soon as one was rented on a job site.   In the meantime, they paid me.
   In their Feb. 2013 issue, some of my package ran (below) - such as Piedmont Portables employee Keith Barksdale spray-cleaning a larger unit.

Shot on assignment for Portable Restroom Operator:
Piedmont Portables worker Keith Barksdale cleans a portajohn.
Ran Feb. 2013 issue.