Over the years I’ve managed to avoid many of the physical dangers of being a commercial photographer. Sure, there’s the paper cuts from sending invoices and the occasional burnt tongue from power lunches, but yesterday delivered a blow equal to that of Rocky Balboa.

Most architectural photography assignments land me in relatively benign situations. There are times where I might be dangling from the edge of a building, walking on a steep roof or even navigating a dark mysterious basement. I’ve been in questionable places at questionable hours. (Oh, and contact with poison ivy … but that’s a whole other story.) Who would have thunk that photographing the new headquarters of the Nashville Opera at the Noah Liff Center would have produced a bloody fat lip, two loose front teeth and the headache of the decade.

Enter me, surveying the wonderful light coming into their Patron’s Lounge. I’m captured by the break in the clouds that are producing nice clean light shining through the skylight ceiling and casting sharp shadows with the typography on the perimeter.

In full-stride and mid-sentence I am stopped dead in my tracks by … what was that! Oh, I remember, we closed (and cleaned) the large glass doors for the previous shot. Ouch! A bit dazed, I receive sympathy and ice from everyone around me … my assist, my clients and some of the opera staff who come from their offices after hearing what sounded like a 175 pound man hitting a 4 x 7 foot glass door.

From examining my pristine face-print on the previously invisible glass door I could see that it was likely my less than shy chin that saved me from greater damages. One of my first thoughts (aside from “what was that!”) was “darn, no more corn-on-the-cob for me this Summer.” Ironically, my wife prepared corn on the cob for dinner last night. Needless to say, I had corn-off-the-cob.