One of the busiest times of the year is apon me. The Sundance Film Festival has begun. It’s the time of year where I usually put my ski gear down, bite the bullet put my head down and go on paparatzi mode. This year is a bit different though. As opposed to the regular work covering random events for WireImage.com I’m covering the events put on by G-Tech by Hitachi. G-tech and Hitachi are putting on panels that are showcasing not just their products but on film ind photography. There will be a panel in a few days showing off some of the RED video products as well as 3d shootin with 2 cameras as well as some things on the photography side. I’m stoked to be doing Sundance work along side some like minded people instead of the usual Sundance crowd.
I’m also spending some time shootng the USSA Snowboard Gran Prix at Park City Mountain Resort which will keep me out of the Sundance scene for a few days and get me on-mountain a bit. I usually don’t get to spend any time on-mountain during the festival so this unusual Sundance for me should be the best one I’ve been a part of in the seven years I’ve covered it.
Filed under Everything else. |
For those of us photographers that travel internationally a lot, things could change drastically soon. With the recent failed terrorist attack on December 25, 2009 there is a lot of chatter on the internet about TSA potentially banning all electronics usage in-flight on American bound flights from outside the USA. This is pretty lame but if it happens it could mean for a lot of boring long distance flights. Check out some of the chatter here and here.
About this time last year, things changed for those of us using lithium batteries. Although the rules are counter intuitive to actual potential dangers, it’s another poorly thought out knee-jerk reaction to some previous problems with some lithium batteries catching fire. For more information about the lithium battery restrictions check out http://safetravel.dot.gov There is a fair amount of information there regarding lithium batteries on domestic flights.
So, although this is old news…a year old in fact I’m still posting this for a pretty good reason. My power packs for my Elinchrom Ranger RX AS Speed and my Alien Bees strobes use SLA and NiMH batteries. NiMH, Alkaline and SLA (Sealed Lead-Acid) batteries are still fine to put in your carry-on luggage. Sure, you know this. But do you have a pdf proving to the TSA village idiot you can to include in your Pelican case your strobe pack is in to make sure you don’t have a problem? I just spent the last half hour looking for mine, and fortunately I found it. So I thought I’d share it. Download it, print it, put it in your case/bag.
View the document here
It’s a good idea to read all of this. Know the rules, have a copy of them. Chances are if you get an idiot asshole TSA agent none of the guidelines matter and you’ll be stuck waiting for a manager that knows what the rules actually are, but sometimes you can actually convince the TSA village idiots that you are obeying the rules and that you aren’t a terrorist. Just a photographer with a bunch of gear.
However, all of this being said, if you are someone that happens to have a Hensel Porty strobe kit then you are in for it. Your Li-ion battery for your power pack is too big and not allowed on the plane at all. You’ll have to ship it. Funny since it would be shipped, in a 747 just like you’d be flying in.
Filed under Everything else and Photography thoughts. |
It’s again that time of year for me, the season is ramping up and time to replace old broken and lost gear. In an effort to pack lighter for trips on the unfriendly skies I recently looked at my pile of light stands looking for a way to cut some weight and to get things in smaller bags. In the past I’ve been packing my rolling ski bag in order to get my older 9 foot Bogen light stand in the mix. The nine foot basic stand sits at 36″ long folded up and weighs in at three pounds. While it’s a pretty good sturdy stand, packing my rolling ski bag around the airport and small rental cars really sucks.
My new solution hopefully is a good one. After staring at specs for about an hour I ran across the Lowel 0133 Omni Light Stand. This compact light stand packs down at 29 inches folded up and weighs in at 2.9 pounds. It isn’t as sturdy as your standard, basic tubular legged light stand however I’m hoping it’s compact size will make up for that. The legs are 1/8 thick, 9/16″ wide solid strip aluminum as opposed to the typical tubular aluminum legs that most light stands these days have. This makes for a bit less stability however it’s made up for in it’s compact size, especially when folded up.
The 9′ Lowel 0133 Omni Stand seems to be built very well, using solid aluminum collar clamps as opposed to most of the lightweight stands out there that use plastic collar clamps.
Being a bit ambitious, I also ordered the Lowel KPH Half Pole 3′ Extension. Carrying around an extra pound in my luggage can get me an extra three feet on top of my nine foot stand. It isn’t the sturdiest combination, however with some weight holding down the base of the stand, it should work ok in light winds with a small head or speedlights on top of the stand/extension combo. I’ll let you know how that works out later though.
More about the extension though, it’s a 2-section extension pole with the same solid aluminum collar clamps as the 0133 Omni Stand and the same gray anodized finish. The base of the extension is a bit on the wide side compared to the 0133 Omni Stand but it gets the job done. I think it will.
(Left) Lowell 0133 Omni Stand fully extended at 9 feet
(Right) Lowel 0133 Omni Stand fully extended with Lowel KPH Half Pole at 12 feet
Filed under Gear Reviews. |
Filed under Personal work. |
The lovely people over at espn.com/action had me do a pre-season jib gallery back in late October working with some of the younger crew out here in Utah. From lift terminal rails at Alta to backflip jumps on snowmaking piles at Deer Valley the pre-season mini-shred is on. It was a ton of fun to go out and make some small features of no real consequence look cool. It’s great to work in simply a fun environment, free of the gnar factor sometimes. Add into the fact that my lighting was pretty simple in these, usually just a few Nikon SB80 DX’s, an Alien Bees 800 and a Elinchrom Ranger RX AS Speed with the ol A-Head. Of course, add in a pile of Pocket Wizard Flex TT5’s
The photo above was real simple, just one Elinchrom Ranger RX AS Speed with a Pocket Wizard Flex TT5 shot with a Nikon D3 and a Nikon 16mm f2.8 fisheye
Alex Schlopy, Will Wesson, Joss Christensen, Giray Dadali and Dave Euler
Check out the gallery over there:
http://espn.go.com/action/freeskiing/blog/_/post/4675777
Filed under Recently Published Photos and Winter Sports Photography. |
This photo was one hell of a production to pull off. Last April in the midst of the biggest storm cycle the Wasatch Mountains has EVER seen on record Julian Carr brought up the idea of shooting some cliffs at Brighton at night. We were fortunate enough to get some help from Brighton Resort to get a last chair up so we could wait for the sun to go down in a nice and toasty lift shack. I hadn’t shot night cliffs before. I was super stoked to try it out but it was a bit of trial and error but fortunately I had Austin Holt out to assist me on the shoot. There was no way I could have pulled this shot off without an assistant. All three of us went out each with a pretty loaded backpack of photo gear and were out there for four and a half hours with help, we probably would have been out till 2AM without help and who knows how that would have gone either!
This is one of the more unique shots I’ve taken, and although I rolled with my style of using gels, I got to do it a bit differently this year and I hope everyone digs it as much as I do.
The gear I used to put this together was quite the laundry list.
Now I don’t normally talk about something like a headlamp used for a shoot, however in this situation with the night shots, they are pretty important. The Black Diamond Icon is a really powerful headlamp that is very necessary out in this kind of situation. A normal LED one just won’t do. It’s really nuts how much light the Icon puts out.
Filed under Recently Published Photos and Winter Sports Photography. |
Subscribe via Email
Subscribe via RSS reader
Follow me on Twitter
Recent Comments