Short Attention Spans......

One of the funny parts about photography is that you never know what you will end up having to work on next. Some projects come into play just like David Hasselhoff does; OUT OF FREAKIN NOWHERE!. I've posted here in the past about working with the Bob Rohrman Auto Group on the 'Rollin with Gunner' video series on Metromix.com. This weeks Rollin with Gunner deals with wanting to play golf during the winter, for which the only solution is obviously to hit glass Christmas ornaments with golf clubs....

(Canon 5D Mark II, 250ISO, Canon 100mmUSMF2.8Macro, 1/250th@F10. Single 580EX Speedlight set to 1/2 power fired by pocket wizard to camera left zoomed to 105mm. Club Swung by Gunner)

That was a still photo that I took while shooting the Rollin With Gunner for this week. The problem is that I didn't have an off camera Cable to use with my canon equipment to achieve faster than a 1/250th of a second sync speed with the flash. That's important because that golf club is moving hella fast, which is why even though I have a flash, and I nailed the club in a single shot; The club and shattering are blurry.

On any normal Wednesday night, I stop in to work at Ultrasun USA, for whom I shoot online, and print photos for outside of the newspaper. It's all non, newspaper glossy magazine, web, and brochure type stuff so there's no direct competition there. Anyway, my good friend Brad is the one who is in charge of the work that I do there and I was telling him about what I was doing at work with Gunner. I showed him the Gunner video that I had finished earlier that day and he was not only excited but he wanted to try it. I'm sure anyone who has read this blog before has heard me mention Brad, and how if there is trouble to be had; he's there with me. He's the friend where if I decided I was going to hell; he'd yell shotgun. (For the record I believe he has in fact already called that seat on the bus I'm taking). He wrote up a real nice piece on his blog about working on photoshoots with me not too long ago too, and I am still super flattered by it. Check it out here. Anyway, Brad decided that we didn't need to shoot what we were supposed to shoot tonight, and we went and bought around a hundred glass Christmas ornaments instead....

(photo by Brock Bruner)

I wasn't totally prepared to shoot high speed action like this tonight, and I'll probably be pulling glass out of my hair, arms and jacket for the next week or so; but really it was all worth it as some of the shots are completely priceless. Brad's the kind of guy that can never have enough gadgets either, so we definitely had an HD video camera inside of a plastic box right in the line of fire to make sure that nothing was missed.

(HD Video Grab from a Sanyo VPCHD-1010)

In the end the intention was to get the club smashing the glass ornament all to snot in frame, which is not as easy as you would imagine. If I could redo it I'd have bought about 20 feet worth of USB cables to tether my camera to my notebook to be out of the line of shrapnel, but in the end we both ended up un-injured; save a few minor eye, and artery injuries.... This was also a great opportunity to play with the Nikon High Speed TTL Sync on the Speedlights too.

(Nikon D3, 2500ISO, Nikon 60mmF2.8Nano Macro, 1/8000th@F11. SB-900 Speedlight to camera right behind the ball set to 200mm +1EV iTTL, SB-900 Speedlight set to +1 EV iTTL to camera left with the Green Gel supplied with the unit, SB-800 zoomed to 105mm, on a stand above the camera shot through a 42" Translucent Disk for Fill set to +1 iTTL. All Speedlights fired by a SU-800 Unit attached to the camera by an SC-80 Off camera Sync Cord and posted on top of a stand about 5 feet above, and behind the camera. Club Swung by Brad Clampitt)

I have a feeling that'll end up being my Christmas card this year, but we'll see what happens over the next week. You just never know. Speaking of never knowing, I think the best shot of the shoot was the shot that was only taken 1 time. This shot was taken on a whim, as I adjusted 1 speedlight to to punch Brad's face. I told him to swing only fired this one frame. Sometimes the more you do something; the luckier you get. More Soon.

(Nikon D3, 2500ISO, Nikon 18-35mm F3.5-F4.5@18mm, 1/8000th@F11. SB-900 Speedlight to camera right behind the ball set to 200mm +1EV iTTL, SB-900 Speedlight set to +1 EV iTTL to camera left with the Green Gel supplied with the unit, SB-800 zoomed to 105mm, on a stand above the camera shot through a 42" Translucent Disk for Fill set to +1 iTTL. All Speedlights fired by a SU-800 Unit attached to the camera by an SC-28 Off camera Sync Cord and posted on top of a stand about 5 feet above, and behind the camera.)