The phrase “tripping the light fantastic” is splashed across the business cards and letterhead of Wethersfield photographer Jack McConnell, who has had the fun of capturing just the right light for annual report and advertising projects for Fortune 500 clients for the past 35 years. He’s traveled to Venice and Amsterdam shooting red freight trucks and messengers for Emery Worldwide; shot air-to-air photos of 767s for Boeing, and astronauts for United Technologies, and photographed on container vessels, oil barges, and car carriers in the North Sea. He’s shot CEO portraits for most of the major banks and insurance companies in Connecticut, and shot posters and catalogs for clients like Heublein, Pepperidge Farms, Stanley, and Craftsman Tools for Sears. His client list is a veritable Who’s Who of Connecticut-based companies.
In 2003 he was awarded the Connecticut Ambassador Award for his tourism photography that helps bring visitors to the state. For more than 20 years, his photographs were on the covers of all the SNET telephone directories in more than 50 communities throughout the state. He has given photography workshops to professionals across the country for Calumet, and has been a featured photographer on the Outdoor Life TV channel. His photography for AIDS awareness and addiction posters helped win a National Endowment for the Arts grant for Concerned Citizens for Humanity.
Easily one of the most prolific photographers in the Connecticut, McConnell has accumulated an archive of 200,000 stock photographs which he sells to clients around the world for calendars, book covers, brochures, ads, and fine art for corporate hallways, from his website, www.mcconnellpix.com/CT and www.stonewalljack.com .
