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How'd he do that?
February 18, 2008I'm sure many of you may have seen the Sunday Sports front page portrait of Andrew Swinhoe and wondered that very question.
How did that happen?
Well, I'm here to tell you.
That is the very front page in question. And a wonderful feature of the Archer City kid who was in a life-threatening accident 10 months ago. He's returned for the Wildcats in what would surely be a comeback player of the year situation in any league.
To help with the amazing story, I wanted an equally amazing photograph... so my adventure to find something really awesome started.
Okay... story first.
Swinhoe pitched the first inning for the Wildcats... and struck out the side. Then batted in the bottom of the first and picked up an RBI with a ground out to shortstop. But he drug his toe on the rehabbed leg and couldn't even make it to first. He pulled himself from the game, but still got a standing ovation.
Now the technical data... So, I knew that I'd want the lights nice and even. I had seen a similar technique used on the Strobist blog a few weeks ago, but didn't think that it really matched the atmosphere for that shot.
So... using my trusty monopod, superclamps, ballheads and flash plates, I rigged them up to be fired with the PWs...
The rig works, it was pretty heavy, but not too bad. Heck I'm used to carrying around huge camera lenses, so this was nothing. Then it was a matter of finding out what flash angle/power I should use to get a nice starburst effect... turns out 1/16th power with the flash head at 24mm worked perfectly (except for the green goblins)
The plan was to use a silver umbrella to light up Andrew from the side front... and then with the long shutter speed... walk behind him firing the strobe stick at intervals.
The umbrella test was perfect at f10 with the flash as full manual power about 4-5 ft. fired with a PW on Ch.1... the strobe stick was fired on Ch.2 with the transmitter in my hand as I walked behind him.
So... knowing that I had everything set the way I wanted... and knowing that the flashes in the background would do what I wanted them to do... I went to work.
Final result.... 17mm, ISO 200, f16 at 10 seconds.... and a cool looking shot.
Perfect?... of course not but pretty freaking cool if you ask me.
Posted by Jason Palmer at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Comments
well...you are a professional, aren't you??...
I loved it! I can always tell which photos are yours and they are amazing. And yes, I was wondering how you did it.
