Great news! ! !

[Tom Mann]

I got some great news last week.

I was selected as the photographer / photoshopper for an advertising campaign to attract new personnel for our fire and emergency medical service. This gig will probably last a couple of months. My final product will be about a dozen high resolution color images, mostly all composites. The good part is that like a big kid, I get to direct the big fire trucks around, select sites, shooting angles, time of day, etc. for the shots, I get a county ID, go to fires, accidents, rescues, etc. to get high quality backgrounds, and then temporarily convert one of their firehouses into a giant photo studio to get detail shots of equipment, turnout gear, shots of firemen (and women) made up to look like they just came out of a fire, etc.

The bad part is that while I own lighting suitable for individuals and small group portraits, I've got nothing that can adequately light their enormous trucks and other vehicles, and do so on a budget that would make "real" automobile photographers either laugh or cry. Fortunately, this organization doesn't seem to be as critical as I had imagined, and they like the work I've already done for them.

Anyway, I love PSG, and will be on every day, but if you detect a slight decrease in my activity, you'll know the reason. Also, it's fortunate that this is occurring in the middle of the semester, and most of the photography will be at odd hours, so it doesn't really impact my work at school, either.

Whooo-hoo. This should be fun! Once the campaign is released, I'll post links.

Tom

 

[IamSam]

Congrats Tom! I'm certain you will have fun! Cant wait to see your finished works! Good luck!

 

[Paul]

Holds breath in anticipation of some wicked images so we can all peruse at leisure.

 

[Paul]

Facing the wrong way tom

 

[chrisdesign]

I'm sure they picked the right guy. I'm happy for you Tom.
Can't wait to see some your images.

 

[dv8_fx]

They picked the right man for the job. Congratulations.

Have fun... Don't get too trigger happy and don't forget to post some of the images here if you have the time.

 

[Tom Mann]

Thank you all very much for the kind words and encouragement. I'm a little nervous about the fire & EMT gig because I've never before dealt with such large pieces of equipment to photograph, but hopefully I'll be able to pull it off. I spent a couple of hours yesterday studying topo maps finding suitable locations for the silhouette shots of the fire equipment against the sunset for the first few of the composites. It's surprisingly difficult to find locations in a fairly flat, densely packed suburban area with few big parking lots where you can get three big pieces of fire equipment all lined up in the appropriate direction for the sunset and also on a slight hill so that there is not any interfering background, just sky.

This evening I'm shooting a science and religion event with a Nobel Prize winner, a couple of bishops, and local TV News anchor on the panel. There's going to be a video team there but I think I'm the only guy shooting stills.

I'll try to get back on the air late tonight If I don't crash when I get home.

Tom.

 

[MikeMc]

Heres a thought for lighting....



http://pmrphoto.blogspot.com/2014/01/ride-along-with-deacon-jim-police.html


Its the people not the trucks...shooting people is tougher, but the lighting is much easier

Good Shooting!

 

[Tom Mann]

Hi Mike -

Thanks for that link. It made an interesting read.

Fortunately, I don't usually have too many problems shooting people ( ... adults, that is. Kids are a different story, LOL). I've got decent equipment for that, and I do quite a bit of event work both indoors and out, so I'm pretty use to milling around, interacting when necessary, being a fly on the wall when that's better, pressing people into becoming human light stands, etc.. I'm also really comfortable shooting pix of small gizmos.

OTOH, if you don't have the right lighting equipment and environment for shooting big stuff like fire trucks, IMHO, you can look like a complete incompetent because people are so accustomed to seeing these gorgeous advertising photos of cars, they think that's normal and anyone with a camera bigger than their should be able to get similar shots.

However, Joe Q Public doesn't have the faintest clue that often high tens of thousands of dollars (or more), and huge facilities are almost always involved in getting each such advertising image.

Anyway, last night was a success both photographically, and for the conference itself.

Attached is a nice candid I got of John Mather, the Nobel Prize winner who essentially completely confirmed that the big bang model of the universe fits the data vastly better than any other model: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Mather. He was one of the panelists at this conference last year, and one of the supporters of the conference I shot last night.

I shot it with the newer of my D700 bodies, and one of my favorite portrait lenses, a 20 y.o. 85mm f/1.4 Nikon AF-D. I lit him with an SB-910 gelled orange to match the nice warmth of the incandescent lights, and pointed in back of me to provide a nice omnidirectional fill, raise the ambient illumination level, and stop most action. Other than the usual cropping, tweaking brightness, and down-rez'ing for posting, I hardly did anything to this shot in PS. This is why I'm always singing the song, "Get it right in the camera and life will be good." LOL.

Best regards,

T

 

[ibclare]

Hey Tom, this sounds like a great gig! I'm sure you'll enjoy it, and I agree with chris. It would be cool to see some of your shots.