Rick’s Rants and Raves

RAСEƆAЯ Promo, originally uploaded by rick020200.

Last week I had the chance to do some promo work for RAСEƆAЯ. I had been introduced to them by Scott and shot their reunion performance. Because of their unique stage presence, I knew I wanted to do a promo shoot with them.

But the question that killed me was “what kind of promo shoot?” I’ve recently been looking at every picture posted to the Band Promos pool and had decided that I didn’t want a bunch of guys standing and facing the camera with stoic faces and a nondescript background (like this one, or this one, or this one, or this one [yes, that's mine]).

My favorite pictures were the ones with a , or some bit of action, or even just a bit of over-the-top expression. I had a lull in my schedule so I reached out to Andy, the lead singer, to see what we could arrange.
At about that time, I noticed a house on my drive home that seemed to be getting torn down by hand, one board at a time. This house sits on the same property as another house, and had obviously been vacant for years, so I figured they were finally tearing it out. I’d seen other pics in dilapidated buildings and thought it could make for an interesting setting. I found the owners on the county auditor’s web site, looked up their phone number and left a message. The next day, I stopped by the house and knocked on the door (boy was I ever nervous) and met Judy. I introduced myself and explained what I wanted to do. She explained that her husband was remodeling the house, but that he was out of town and that I should check back the next week. I left her my card. When I checked back, I talked with their teenage son and left another message. I figured anything more than three attempts would be harassment, so I just let it go.
Fortunately, Andy had an excellent plan B. We could do a shoot focusing on his dad’s restored 1955 car (I’m an idiot for not knowing what kind it was). We agreed on a date, and I quickly finished work on my DIY strip lights (hopefully I’ll do a post on those soon) since I wanted to use them in lighting the scene above.
I bought a 12-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, threw it in a cooler and brought it with me, figuring the cans would make great props, and give their hands something to do. Oh, and it was terribly hot and the cold beer made everyone happier.
My first idea was to shoot them doing something stoopid to the car under the hood. The strip lights were necessary here to focus the light on the under-hood area, make it reasonably large (soft shadows) and come from a lot of angles (few shadows). I also had a flash on a stand at the back of the car to add depth to the garage, rather than making it a black hole.
The next idea came up on the fly, and started with someone’s comment “maybe we could do something with the trunk”. So I had the idea to work with a mock abduction scene. I wanted to have the band members stuffing the lead singer into the trunk for a couple of frames, then have him battle back and put them in their place (ha!).

Finally, they wanted a shot of all of them in the car. I was really sweating it now. Light was fading, and I knew anything non-flashed would have them dark in the car, and bright sky behind them. So I placed a flash in the center floor of the front seat with a bounce card, and a second flash in the back seat pointed at the white backs of the front seats.
But that wasn’t enough because of the way the driver was leaning toward the window. So I snooted a third flash, turned it way down in power and had a voice activated light stand point it at the driver from just over my shoulder.

When I got home I played around with the post processing on this final shot a great deal because a) there was a suburban looking garage and basketball pole in the background, and b) the back-seat passengers are a bit too fuzzy. I realize now I need to have the aperture set to f/8 or more to get better depth of field. In the end, I just chopped out the back ground, put in one of my sunsets and called it done.

It was a good time, and an excellent learning opportunity. They guys were a blast to work with and were very flexible. I hope they’re able to make use of the photos in their promotional materials.

Moxie, 100mm, ISO 200, 1/40s, f/2.8.

I’ve had a bit of gear lust recently. For the last couple of months I’ve been coveting a Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. I’ve just recently bought a new camera, and had decided that I should wait before getting a lens. Unfortunately for our savings account, Midwest Photo recently had a “tent sale” for a lot of used and closeout merchandise. After we perused the bins for a bit, I decided to show this lens to Anne.

“We have a used one” the man behind the counter (MBTC) said helpfully. Oh dear. The used one was discounted 30% off retail and was in very good condition. Oh dear. But the tripod mount was a bit damaged. Phew. I pointed out the damage, and the MBTC explained that he had ordered a replacement part for it, and he should have it around somewhere…. Oh dear. A few minutes later the damaged part was gone, and the lens was a good as new. Oh dear. Anne and I stepped aside to talk about the status of our savings account, and the fact that we have a little bit of slack. And it was, after all, a pretty steep discount.
Oh yes!

The first publication to print one of my photos is the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

They had originally found and been drawn to this picture, but when I told them that the adult in the photo was the child’s dad, and not a Free Geek volunteer, they were a little disappointed. I sent them thumbnails of the whole set from our Freek Geek trips and they preferred the image above because Scott was in it, helping the boys. Woo hoo!

We were at the Chautauqua Institution over Independence Day, and surprisingly, this was the first time I’d ever really attempted to photograph fireworks. I brought the tripod, and mounted the camera with 70-300mm lens on it. As I was setting it up, a woman nearby asked if I worked for the newspaper. Uh, nope. I just like to pretend I know what I’m doing. I set the lens to manual focus,  took a few test shots, fiddled with the settings until I saw what I liked (above was 2 second exposure at f/7.1, 200 ISO) then sat down and remotely triggered the shutter for a bunch more. At some point I messed with the focus, which blew about 15 shots, but I still ended up with about 25 keepers.

John Williams is a face painter and this man is dedicated to his art form. He spent hours each day painting the faces of any kid that was willing to wait in line for it. And he did it all for free. I took a number of pictures one afternoon attempting to capture the process and the interest of the other kids. When my daughter’s friend, Zoe, pictured above, got in line as the light was fading fast, I decided to set up a flash. In this case, I strapped it to a pillar of the porch right behind the artist with my DIY diffuser. I’m really pleased with several of the results.

One of the other facets of being at Chautauqua on Independence Day was that the flags were out in force. On of the flags was massive, maybe 30×20 feet, and I thought it would make a fun background for the girls to play in.

I tried to make some sunset portraits, practicing earlier work I’d done in the Strobist Lighting 102 series. Since we were on vacation, I didn’t have an umbrella, and didn’t bother attempting it with my DIY diffuser. I also didn’t have a light stand, so I mounted it on my tripod. The hair light is coming from another flash mounted on my paint pole monopod held in place by a voice activated light stand who got a portrait for her troubles. I had brought the paint pole with the intention of putting the camera on it to get high perspectives, but I never saw anything that I felt would benefit from the added height. At least it got used once. Anyway, the thought that comes to my mind with these portraits is that I still need to work on finessing the light rather than using my brute force technique at lighting a subject. This particular portrait would have benefited from a slower shutter speed to bring in more ambient sky light.

Twice during the week I woke early to attempt to capture sunrise over the lake. I saw great blue herons both times, but only managed to capture a decent shot the first time. My first attempt at a trite sunrise picture was from a dock near Miller Bell Tower, and as such I was pretty much in the water with no foreground interest except for the slightly choppy water. After I was frustrated enough with my attempts, I turned around to leave and saw the sunrise over the lake reflected in these glass doors. I like the composition better than anything else I shot that morning.

On my second attempt, I was able to capture a much more dramatic sky, and I was more aware to capture some foreground interest. I think I need to edit this one just a little bit to make the sailboat more visible. But for now, I love how the sky looks like it is on fire.

Rainy days at Chautauqua are a lot of fun for me photographically. The lighting is much softer, and people are no longer walking around squinting. As a thunderstorm was in full downpour, I grabbed an umbrella and the camera and went to shoot the crowd at the arts festival that was on-going. I imagined that I’d see people hunched under umbrellas while shopping in tents. I thought it might be a fun shot. I like this one. When I was crouching to get the shot, umbrella close at hand, in the rain-shade of a tree, a woman said to her companions “There’s someone dedicated to getting a shot”. Yup. Sometimes. I dearly love the shot above as a prototypical Chautauqua moment. No where else in my daily life will I see someone riding a bike with a golf umbrella in the rain.