Friday, August 08, 2014

Diary of a Fiery Photo Shoot



I love a challenge, and when Ryan told me that he was interested in doing a shoot involving fire-breathing, I immediately said "yes!" The sign here says "no smoking"; fortunately, it said nothing about spewing streams of fire.



We both arrived early, and took things easy as we waited for sunset to approach.



People (and animals) were still out enjoying the warm water.



Well, maybe not all that warm.



Ryan showed me some of the ideas and locations he had for shooting out the fire so that I could be prepared. You can't exactly ask someone to "hold that pose" when they are breathing out fire.



Closer to sunset:



Surfers getting the last waves in:



And then it was time.



It is amazing how quickly it gets dark. Ryan's first few breaths allowed me to fiddle around with my settings. There was a lot to coordinate on the camera for something I had never done before.



After a few, I started hitting my groove.



I had to shoot at an ISO that was much higher than I wanted it to be; on the next one, I would definitely begin at least an hour earlier.



The water shots definitely had the most potential for looking cool.



The waves were not exactly what Ryan had hoped for, so it looks like there might be a round two.



Besides, he had run out of 151 for the fire. I'm getting awful flashbacks of Hawaiian Punch and trash cans.

See more Daveland Ocean Beach photos at my main website.

2 comments:

Fifthrider said...

Well, they turned out pretty good to me. The blues and oranges are as separate and contrasting as possible. Also, I never tire of OB and wish I were there right now. Lucky.

K. Martinez said...

Image 4 of Ryan and dog is very nice. I love the color of the surf and sand in that one. I also like the composition on that one.

Image 7 is gorgeous. Love the sunrays and sail captured just below the pier as well as the surfers waiting to catch a wave.

The fire images turned out nicely, but if Ryan thinks there's better waves, round two could be cool to see.

Nice set today. Thanks, Dave.