Craning for a view, brewing up new images

Gary Haydon and crew were happy to reposition a
crane to fill the background of this quick portrait.

The Four Peaks crew is adding a brewing
space to the roster to keep the Kilt 
Lifter, Eighth Street Ale, Hop Not and 
other favorites flowing not just into the
restaurants but into stores around
the Valley.

    The last couple months have been gloriously busy, presenting many opportunities to make local businesses, their founders and leaders look good.

     From the man whose people at Haydon Construction build bridges to get us around more efficiently to the guys at Four Peaks Brewery who make that wonderful local brew that lifts your Kilt, the three-generation folks who have given you a place to rest your head  at Arroyo Roble Best Western, Sedona,  and who keep you cool in the heat Chas Roberts Air Conditioning and Plumbing, and numerous others, it's been an incredible way to pump some life into my latest work.

     In many cases these gracious folks have been able to allow the time to light up environments with multiple strobe sets and provide enough time to work in multiple settings to give us a variety of looks for the final ads that would result.

     Notable in the technique department is the Four Peaks shoot where, once again I made use of available "equipment" to accomplish my lighting goals.

How to light large stainless steel tanks
without taking over the brewery? Use
hidden surfaces of the tanks as giant
reflector panels, of course!

   When shooting stainless steel, ideally you want to have a highlight or two that runs top to bottom on the shiny object. Usually the only way to do that is to use a lighting or reflective panel that is as tall as the object. This works great with a wine bottle where it is easy to use a panel or a softbox that fits the dimensional need. Not so much when the object is 20 feet tall!

     Okay it was early, so it took me a few minutes to realize that the solution was the tanks themselves. The solution was to bounce a large strobe off of the tanks out of frame in a couple of locations to produce tall strips of light that would reflected onto the sides of the tanks in the photograph. In the final image you can see the effect of one light reflected in the near tank, at left. Further back, another strobe is causing a reflection on the three tanks on the right.

     What lighting problem?

Phil and Christy and their General Manager
Lonnie keep you comfortable in Sedona.

     Each of these shoots would ultimately come together as a cog in the machine of a print and electronic campaign for the National Bank of Arizona, talking about their partnerships with their clients, leading the businesses to greater success. Each of these is yet another opportunity to meet some great people, solve another, possibly new, lighting problem and produce some images that remind me what I like so much about this job.

Baseball, softball and volleyball venue,
Mike and Kim's Victory Lane.

Heating up the Z-Tejas menu

Steven, keeping the energy high at Z'Tejas

Keeping you cool, Sissy Shank keeps the tradition going at Chas Roberts.