Firemonkeyphoto

Samhuinn 20090
neil posted in Photos, Neil, phototech, 5Dmk2 on February 28th, 2010

Its freezing cold, breath is misting in the air and I’m sweating profusely. On my back is my biggest camera bag, chock full and on my front is another sack full of rope and metal. Behind me is the registry office and I’m meant to be inside it. Halloween revellers pass, glimpsing at us with our painted faces and finding us photographers still as freaks in a melange of wierdness. Time goes on and the other photographers in our team head into position, cameras in hand. I’m not in position, my camera is’nt near my hands and the kit I’m carrying does’nt allow me to make a good backup plan. I’m to be on the third floor, flashes rigged, tripod up and harness on ten minutes ago. Dan and Ania, my last companions have to move soon. The day of packing and checking, the practice shoots and careful organisation are sliding down the drain because someone, somehow got the time wrong. Soon the Samhuinn procession will come down the Royal Mile, surrounded by spectators and I’m going to miss it.

The man with the key appears, sometime after eternity (subjective I suppose) and I’m in. Racing for the wedding chamber on the second floor. I dump my sacks and run through the kit, assembling it as fast as I can. I’m muttering “Do it like you practiced, just faster, same order”. Its pitch black outside so the flashes get rigged first. Three all sliding home onto one light tripod. The tripod and each flash clipped to a rope, the rope clipped to some stout plumbing. Full power, full zoom, the throw from the second floor out to the stage outside St Giles is long and right at the edge of what my kit can do. The time-lapse camera is prepared, the cable release is shorted, meaning that when the camera is switched on, it will motordrive for the entire event. 10s exposure on shutter priority, the light goes from dim to blinding during the performance and that’ll give the camera a chance to cope with the flares. Focus checked, double checked and triple checked. The camera is clipped and placed next to the flashes on the huge windowsills. Last but not least is my two hand-cameras. 5D bolted onto a titanic 500mm F4 from lensforhire.co.uk and a 1D with a 70-200mm for some flexibility. The 500 goes on a borrowed tripod and all the gear is clipped back to the building. I’ve dumped all my insulating layers and in only a long-sleeve t-shirt I’m out on the ledge in the chill October air. The crowd have gathered but the main procession is’nt in place yet. I plan to use the time to dial in my aperture for the flashes, around f/5.6. The pocketwizard on my 1D can’t reach the flashes, just two windows down, its AA batteries are somehow kaput. The TTL1 on my 5D is fine but there is no time to swap. I push the 1D to its highest usable ISO, 1600, crank the lens as wide as it will go and machinegun the procession, trying to pan with my subjects between the slaps of the shutter.

The procession reaches the stage and its game on for my flashes, the 500mm lens ultra-tight on the performers. The 5D can’t focus the big glass at the dim start of the ceremony so I’m manually focusing. Its a BIG focus ring but a nice tight lens so I do ok. Its VERY tight for the fire-dances so I switch to the 70-200mm, VERY time consuming with all the ropes, straps, tripod set about me. The 70-200mm is finally in the tripod and the flashes are doing OK. I’m hoping the time-lapse camera is still shooting but I can’t move to check it, even as the chill begins to settle through my shirt.

Fire dances and swirls, flightless birds are driven off by painted men and the stage goes red. The Red-Men are showstealers, stacking human beings to the beat of battling drums. The pyro guy is on the stage and the flare goes off, I expose a few frames at 1/20th before zapping the shutter to the maximum 1/250th I can squeeze from my strobes. A second flare backlights the performers and the hags are on the stage. Hags tear the hearts out of the red men and the Wild Hunt starts to encroach upon the stage. Somehow I find time to trade ISO for flash power, dropping each flash to half and throwing on a warm layer. Giant insects are battling a tree and I’m switching up for my 500mm for the fight of the kings.

The Kings are huge with recurved legs, I can’t include all of one in the frame. They duel with flaming swords and staves, posing and finally one is set ablaze and they fall. The Cailleach is onstage revealling with shockingly white hair and bloody teeth. She revives one (or both..) and friends and performers begin to mob the stage.

The drummers flank proceedings and the crowd surges in. The dancing begins and slowly dies down, my work is over. The gear goes into the bags and I meet my escort home outside, we work late pulling together an edit for the BBC website and other news outlets before slinking off to the after-party at Three Sisters.

Sheer bloody persistence0
neil posted in Photos, bikes, Neil, 5Dmk2, Night on February 25th, 2010

I had this photograph in my head for months. Every time we rode to this staircase on the way out to the Pentlands, I would poke myself about it. I was certain there was a good picture to be made. I tried a few times to get myself and another party out there for a shoot, but it was only last night I succeeded. This is a pretty frequent occurance, finding a location or visualising a photograph long before it can be taken. They don’t always work out, angles don’t always fall the way you remember them and locations can lose their magic in the wrong light. This was’nt quite the photo I originally imagined, the light was far better than I had remembered and fell perfectly for the lighting technique I used.

I used my big Elinchrom Ranger pack, tucked into my bag with the head on a tripod on a steep and greasy slope. The final photograph used a gridded reflector to allow the Exposure Enduro on the bike’s handlebars to fill the bottom of the scene. I got focus by getting Simon to shine the light in his face until I managed to dial in the manual focus (using live view). The staircase was otherwise pitch black, preventing the orange sodium lights contaminating the bike’s light or the flash light.

The thing that really made the photo possible, however, was the titular persistence. Simon rode the staircase about twenty times, tirelessly wheeling his bike back up the staircase, stopping halfway so I could check focus and then cheerfully repeating. Only once did he stumble on the descent, but that landed him nearly over the wall. Each time I needed to change the power of the flash I had to run a steep marathon of brambles, thorns and a slick slope which could only be climbed by lunging for tree stumps near its summit and clawing up through the snow and mud. This process took around five minutes, the flash power was changed three times and its pocketwizard ran out of battery once. The exposure was made by bending backwards over the wall and tucking the camera hard onto my left shoulder. It was only marginally possible to see through the viewfinder. We tried triggering the flash while Simon was partway down the descent, but it seems easier to find him in the top image. One hundred and fourty eight exposures were made over two hours for the images you see here. I’m glad we made them, it is good to get them out of my head.

Mud & moonlight0
neil posted in Photos, bikes, Neil, 5Dmk2 on February 11th, 2010

The lights were backed off and snooted so they cast a “textured” light that passed through trees and other obstacles, giving a more textured, shadowy look. The two light sources were set so that they should fill each others shadows, softening the light and making it appear more natural. Blue gels were added to both flashes to give an impression of ultra-strong moonlight. I wound up backing this off in post-processing, and am still undecided about the effect. The actual shooting on the ride went differently to the plan. The first shot of the evening was a sketchy muddy chute (tremendous fun) which I shot using the exposure enduro on my handlebars and ambient light.

The closest I came to what I had pre-visualised is the first image of this post. I’d like to try this setup on a rootier section or on something that lends itself to a night-time landscape. I’m intrigued by the idea of manufactured moonlight.. can you tell?