2005 Chevrolet promotional pictures taken in Moses Lake

Port hosts crew of photographers looking for space, stone … pond?

Potential car buyers all over the nation won't know it, but they're getting a little taste of Moses Lake.

A camera crew took pictures of the 2005 Chevrolet collection of vehicles for advertisements that will appear in Chevrolet dealerships across the country Monday on Grant County International Airport territory.

"They are a national firm that's been hired by Chevy to get promotional pictures of the vehicles, and these are the slicks that you find when you go to the new car dealers, and you see all those pretty pictures," explained David Senne, executive director of the Port of Moses Lake. "That's where they come from."

Senne said that the photographers were working all weekend on their photo shoot, and even required the building of a small reflection pond on the site of the photo session — the overrun of one of the airport's runways.

"We fairly often have photographic teams come out here, and most of the time they're out here to get pictures of airplanes," Senne said. "It's just another example of the unique things that we can do out here. They needed space and pavement, and the other thing that they wanted was the good weather."

"Moses Lake worked out very well because the weather here, in comparison to Seattle, which is a lot more overcast off the coast — it's usually a lot nicer here," said Ron Strong, photographer for Campbell-Ewalde Advertising, based in Warren, Mich. "Clearer skies, more sun. Dave was gracious enough to allow us here, and with a big nice open area to work."

Strong said he found out about Moses Lake through his location scout, so that he could shoot pictures for the 2005 Chevrolet catalogs, for the Tahoe and Suburban.

"I don't think I could have done it anywhere else except in Moses Lake," he said. "With the weather conditions that the location gives us, I definitely would come back and recommend it to other people."

Strong said that dealing with the people in Moses Lake airports, hotels and restaurants has been a wonderful experience, called the results "superb."

"One of the shots I had needed a stone, gravel type of look," he said, adding with a laugh, "I shot it out here on the runway and my client thought I'd actually dropped about 800 yards of gravel down, so I was a hero."

Edward Erskine, senior creative director for Campbell-Ewald, said that the finished results would be in dealerships in September.