…stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade, and he carries the reminders….. lah lah lah lah lah. With apologies to Simon & Garfunkel.
Look, just think yourself lucky you can’t actually hear me singing it. I’ve heard that burst eardrums are particularly painful.
So.. I was commissioned to shoot images of some up-and-coming young sports people, as part of a college bursary scheme. Strange word bursary. I’m more familiar with scholarship, but there you go.
Fortunately we had use of a Jimminyasium (someone once said it to me like that), as on the day of the shoot it was the weather from hell. Horizontal sheets of rain.
So once in the Gymnasium and having cleared up the pools of water that poured off me, I got to work.
For me the stand-out images of the shoot were of a boxer, and first up, just lit with a softbox:
Believe me, that’s a big fist when it’s up that close.
I then decided I’d kill-off the ambient. Regular readers of my drivel excellent weblog will know it’s one of my fave ways of focussing the viewers eyes onto the subject, and me being able to control the light instead of the other way around.
Lit with a gridded mini-beauty dish. Gridded? Can’t be a real word surely?
…Angel. This follows on from three-light basketball player, and actually, although I had four lights set-up in readiness, I didn’t use them all at the same time, so in the end the maximum was 2 at a time. So there you go – the run has come to an end . Sorry then if you came here under false pretences. I’ll do a four-light for you sometime in the not too distant future, promise.
Maybe it’s just as well though. After 4 comes 5 (always was brilliant at maths), and after that I run out of Speedlites.
This was a commission for the Irish Wheelchair Association, to publicise their National Angel Day. Angel Day is a “Pin Day” where pins are sold to support the association, a registered charity.
In the spirit of being charitable, I decided to keep and show the whole out-take from the shoot, as opposed to my normal routine where the last thing I want you to see are all the cock-ups, bloopers, out-of-focus shots, flash no-fire shots, etc. All the images are taken straight from the camera, with just a straight RAW to jpeg conversion. No post-processing whatsoever, nothing. Somewhere in amongst all the dross, more by luck than judgement due to my fantastic ability, are some keepers.
What it all goes to prove I guess, is one or more of the following:
a) When you are working with the small version of humans, you don’t get many chances to “nail” the image you want.
b) 90% of a shoot is testing the lights and the positioning of the subjects.
c) You don’t need to shoot 5,000 images to get something worthwhile.
d) Angel wings keep falling over.
e) It’s always raining when you have to carry a ton of gear back to your vehicle.
OK, so e) doesn’t actually have anything to do with the shoot.
I threw the whole lot together in iMovie, from an original concept called “Frames” by the legendary Chase Jarvis. I’ve decided that for me at least, cock-ups might be more appropriate than Frames, but if I use this idea again it might be called TWNY (The Whole Nine Yards).
First up though, the keepers:
All lighting was over-under using an Ezybox 60cm softbox (over) and a mini LumiQuest softbox (under), except for #4 which was a mini beauty dish on “Angel”, and a mini LumiQuest softbox on Alanna, held by my wonderful lighting assistant Ciara.
And now here comes the vid:
Do not adjust your set, it starts with a blank frame, that’s to test I had the ambient light killed-off sufficiently. There are more throughout the show too, where the lights can’t recycle quickly enough to keep up. Unusually there isn’t a shot of my foot. The first frame on the card is usually testing that the Pocket Wizards are hooked up correctly and firing the Speedlites, and I always seem to have the camera pointing at my foot. It finishes with the keepers that you see above.
Click to play – WATCH OUT – there’s music if you are faffing around wasting time doing research on the Internet at work. Music is Angels by Mettatron.
My client Thos for all the organising, and commissioning the shoot with enough advanced notice that we could plan it properly. Not the “Come along in an hour’s time and create award-winning images” that I often get. Pulling the rabbit out of the hat as I often have to gets monotonous, for me, and the rabbit.
My Angel, Cork Ladies Footballer Nollaig Cleary for being a gem.
My “models”, Alanna and Cathal for their patience and putting up with my growling.
My lighting assistant Ciara (talkalot) O’Neill, sister of Cathal – I’m sure you’re going to be a big star one day, and when you’re a famous performing-arts star, don’t forget me. I’m available for a photo-shoot in Hollywood anytime you call.
I had so much fun putting the video together that it might just become a regular feature.
You have been warned. Persons of a nervous disposition would be well-advised to look away now…
. Sorry then if you came here under false pretences. I’ll do a four-light for you sometime in the not too distant future, promise.
