Yes, back on the water. Last Tuesday, I went on on the boat with some friends and we wanted to get some wake surfing in. The water was 51 degrees and the air was around 55. So It was still very cold, but way worth it. I figured I would bring my camera to visually document this event so I did and we took some fun photos. I don’t usually shoot watersports at all but it would be something to get into. It is defiantly pretty hard because your very limited angle wise and lighting wise. I really have no experience with it so I guess the mess-around-photo-shoot turned into a learning experience. It would be sweet to go out again and do some stuff with lights on the boat and maybe a chase boat to get some good action shots. I have some ideas but with the water being so cold, not that many people are down to ride.
Later in the week I shot some stuff on my slack line. Put a strobe on either side of Cody (the slacker) and shot at it from above and to the left of the line. Slacking has become quite popular and it is defiantly one of my favorite things to have. I still have a ton to learn about lighting but I now have a lot better understanding of where to put the lights with out having to move them around a lot trying to figure out what will look good. I am going to try to get a lot of posts that have to do with lighting in the next few weeks and really try to progress with the art of strobing.
And to finish the week off I shot some more skating. I have started looking at a lot more skating shots and magazine covers and so many of the “pro” shots are super good, but they are super simple. Yes, there are the shots that are ultra-wide and super tech lighting, but the majority is just simplicity. That is something I am going to try and work on is just keeping it simple. I have looked through all my skate shots from this year and last year and as I have become more interested in skate photography, I have noticed I have developed a style for me. That is one more area that I have been working at is to get a style of photography that represents what I do and stick with it. If you look at any professional photographers in the skiing/snowboarding/wakeboarding/skateboarding community, they all have their standard style and maybe a little flare every now and then, but the majority of their work is all THEIR style. That is what photographer Erik Seo has done. He has simple shots, with simple lighting, but the photos are really good. He is always pushing the limits of the skiing industry. Another photographer in the same industry as Erik is Darcy Bacha, he takes similar approaches on photography like Erik, but has a little more tech in his photos. THe thing that links both of those photographers together is that they both have a style that is their own, and they stick to it. That is something that I would like to develop in my work.
Here are this weeks shots:
And Last but not least, a few fisheye photos:
Nothings exciting, just messing around and a very attractive photo of Twitchell himself.
Thanks for viewing,
-Steve
The second fisheye shot is money, i like it but if you could have gotten closer to the ground it would have eliminated those trees in the background and all you would have is the rocks and the sky.
I gotta put my 2 cents in about Seo. His lighting is anything but simple. I’ve been following his blog for awhile and reading up on a few of how he got the shots are crazy. I think his main style is his use of technical lighting, it shines through in his use gels, he uses gels a ton and uses them very well which is an extremely technical thing in itself disregarding the rest of his lightning.
Anyways thats my opinion on his style
http://www.islerphoto.com/ Look here as well. as much as I hate to say it Mr. Prescott is correct, the lighting setups that these guys use are not simple- wham-bam-get-it-done-. They plan it out. They test it out before the riders get out on the water. They draw it out on paper then take notes on the paper about what works and what doesn’t work, then grow from that.
On a different note- the LAST fisheye shot is the best, BY FAR. The second shot? Great as well and I would say that the trees make the photo.
Keep working on this, your work is growing by leaps and bounds, just keep learning from what you do, really study the work of others.