Project 52 - Week Nine

Nikon D100 35-70 500 sec @f11

Q&A

Lots of questions about the recent video we did for Interstate Trucks. As previously stated, I don't currently own a HDDSLR. I have an old Panasonic PV-GS9 that I purchased several years back. I used it along with the grip equipment that I have on hand for my still shoots. The camera was clamped onto the mirror of the truck for some shots of the driver. At one point, I also had a Nikon D70s clamped onto a grab handle inside the truck to get the still shots of the driver. This camera was fired via remote control. I was actually in the vehicle behind him when this image was made. I fired off 20-30 images and just chose the best. For the shot under the truck, I sat the camera up on a mini tripod and double checked ground clearance of the truck. Then we let Doug roll over the camera. He seemed a little skeptical but I didn't mind losing the camera in the event things went wrong.

After all of the video was captured, I dumped it onto the hard drives and began the editing. I trimmed the clips to where I wanted them, put them in order, and then dropped the stills in place. A few tweaks were done to the audio. Total process including shooting and editing took about 10 hours.

This project was a blast to work on and the whole team at Interstate Trucks loved it. Can't wait to work on the next one.

New Truck Video

Here is the latest project that has kept me busy for the last several days. Still learning this video thing. No HDSLR here. Just a cheap vid cam I have had laying around for several years. Sometime you just gotta use what you got on hand.

Project 52 - Week Eight

Nikon D100 w/ 35-70/2.8~~~750 sec @ f14

Project 52 - Week Seven

Lost in Motion

While I started Project 52 to push me to create new images, it has also got me to looking into images I made years ago.  I ran across this one that I made in 2004 in Boston.  I have always loved this image but only recently ran across it again.  Nikon D100/35-70 2.8 @35mm 1/10 sec @2.8

Interstate Trucks

Doug called again with another truck that he needed images of.  We did the last shoot in November.  This time he wanted to use a lot he just purchased.  He is scheduled to build on the lot this year but as you can see in the first image, it wasn't much to work with.  The good news was we had plenty of room.

I chose to place the truck as close to the neighboring building as I could and then used a 70-200 lens to compress the background even more.  The shoot happened later in the afternoon and fortune was on my side this day.  The sun was almost directly behind camera with the angle I wanted to shoot.  The only issue I could see was the front of the truck in need of some extra light.

Working at ISO 200 F9, I knew the flash would have to be almost on top of the truck to have any effect what so ever.  I only had my speed lights but I did have four of them at my disposal.  During the last shoot I was able to use the CLS system to fire the strobes but that would have been impossible at the range I was working today and competing with the sun.  I grabbed the wireless triggers and positioned the light just a few feet from the truck.  My only concern was keeping the light and stand in a photoshoppable area of the image.

After a little work in PS to remove some unwanted elements and add his logo, below is the image we delivered.  Be sure to check out their web site and blog.  Doug and his whole team put an incredible amount of time into restoring these rigs.

Project 52 - Week Six

So I am driving to a shoot recently when I pass a Land Rover dealership.  I see this SUV parked on one of those dealership ramps right out by the road.  It caught my eye but there was tons of junk all around the ramp.  It is in a parking lot.  I chose to stop and see if I could come up with an angle that would lead one to believe it was made in the middle of no where.  Turns out there was a ditch between the road and the ramp.  This allowed me to get low enough to grab the image you see above.  Nothing had to be photoshopped out of the background.  PS was just used to enhance the image and provide some blur to the tires as though it were in motion.  Nikon D200 17-50/2.8 180 sec @ F5 ISO 100.

Follow Up - Slow Time of Year

A month ago, I wrote about what can be done during the slow time of the year.  I contacted the broker at the office and offered to photograph anyone that would like to update their head shot.  We agreed that Feb 2 would be a good time since they had their monthly sales meeting that day.  I sent an email to him with all of the details that he forwarded to all of the agents.  I used Event Brite to manage the event and take appointments.  I was a little concerned when only 5 agents signed up but I was committed to doing it.  The broker announced it again during the meeting and 21 agents came in afterwards to be photographed.  The only problem that I ran into was the small space alloted for the images.  The first image was taken with a 17-50mm at about 32mm.  The

room couldn't have been more than 12 feet long and maybe 8 feet wide.  I was really glad I didn't have to put studio strobes in that tight space and then run cords all over the room for power.

The lighting setup is our normal setup minus the background light.  Since I couldn't get any more distance between my subject and the background, I had enough spill from the main light to eliminate the background light.  We worked fast allowing only two-three minutes with each agent and getting about five shots of each during that time frame.

The second image is the results from the lighting.  All images have been retouched and placed on our website.  The agents are free to download and use the images as they like.

This turned out to be a great event for us.  It helped them out with updated head shots and gave us time in the community to market ourselves.  We were able to land another job from this.

One down, two more of these events to go.  One of those has 15 people who signed up online.  If I get 5 times that many again, it will turn out to be a very busy morning.