Day 17 - Project 365

"Mom Always Said I Was a Catch!"

Over the past 17 days I've found that ideas do not float in the air like I would have hoped. However, today that was excatly what happened as the first idea that came to me was a hook in the mouth. I wish every day could be this easy! It started with a Facebook comment and before I knew it Lia was in and so was Shawn. We grabbed the gear including the new video camera and headed out to the pier. The weather was undesirable nearly all day and come time to shoot it had not changed. Rain drops fell on the window, creating an interesting blur of head and tail lights of the passing cars. I was starting to wonder if this shot was going to happen. I had put all my eggs in one basket tonight and only made a plan b. Yup... no plan A or C. We arrived to the Jensen Beach causeway only to find the southern breeze blowing the rain straight onto the pier that runs west to east under the bridge. We walked the length and decided that this wasn't the location. We brainstormed for a quick second and decided that the Roosevelt bridge, which ran north to south, would be a better location.

As we were driving the rain had stopped and the wind had calmed. This made for a much more desirable shooting condition. The pier under the bridge was nearly void of any life which for this location is slightly odd. It didn't bother me as getting a long exposure for the background layer would work best if I didn't have several dozen beer can toting, lawn chair lounging fisher-people polluting the background. I've come to the this spot on many occasions and found a carnival of different characters including dogs and cats and tiny children running all around. Although, if there is one guaranteed thing... its that the second either Shawn or myself drop a line in the water, anyone within 20 yards of us will stop catching anything. I've retired from recreational fishing if only to avoid getting beat upside the head by a angry little man trying desperately to catch his dinner. We unload and make our way about a quarter of the way down the pier and setup two lights. one Alien Bee 800 with a seven inch reflector aimed at where Lia will stand and a Alien Bee 800 with a beauty dish boomed over head aimed at Shawn. We get the line and hook ready, apply the wine soaked cork (mmmm, no really it tasted pretty good) and start firing off test shots. It wasn't long before we had the lighting, pose and camera position down. I ran back to the car to grab the tripod and a stand for the video camera.

I wanted to get a 3 shot HDR of the background as the total black void I would get from shooting at f/14 would not suffice tonight. I wanted the final shot to show that they were on the water. Additionally, I shot two photos of shawn and Lia. One with Shawn in focus and one with Lia in focus as I didn't want the hard work Lia put into making that face to be blurred away. She is getting better at portraying different emotions... slowly. When I first met her, she was stuck on "intensely, overoptimistically, bright pink and fluffy bunny happy" all the time. I've since gotten her to show both straight face and surprise. Its hard but someones got to do it. Day 17 is in the bag, what will Day 18 bring? we will see.

Lighting:

AB800 Beauty Dish Boomed over head approx. 8 feet high aimed at Shawn. positioned at 6:00 1/4 power

AB800 Bare, 6 feet up aimed at Lia positioned at 6:00 along the rail that she is standing near. 1/4 power