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Here is an image that was selected for the PP of A Loan Collection. This brand of photography is something we have always called "ghost photography". That's not an official term but rather a personal one that we use to describe any sort of nighttime special effect photography. This image was taken just before dark. It was also about to rain. The only equipment that I used other than my Nikon FE (tripod mounted) was a Vivitar 285 portable strobe and a red, blue and green gel to change the color of the strobe light. The flash unit was set to half power. The aperture was f 8 1/2 with an exposure of about 3 minutes. Once the shutter was locked open, the subject and interior of shack were flashed using the red gel. About 8 to 10 pops were used to cover the walls and the back of the subject. About 3 pops were done with the flash unit pointed at the subject so that light could be seen streaking out the door and across the grass. Once the interior had been done, the exterior of the building was popped 5 to 8 times using the blue gel. Finally the grass in front of the camera was popped a few times with a green gel to keep it from going totally black. Because it's a long exposure and there is no other lighting present, I cannot be seen moving about the scene. I am also wearing dark clothing. I get many questions about the lightning in the sky. It is absolutely real. Luck can play a large part in creating an image. The sky appears to be quite light but it was actually almost dark. The small amount of light that was in the west built up over the three minute exposure to give the impression of a fiery sky. There are also other questions that are asked about exposure calculation. To be honest, there are no real calculations. One can only estimate. If the flash unit is putting out enough light to give you f 5.6 at about 10 feet, then then two pops at that distance will give you f 8. Add the colored gel and you need to add a couple more pops to make up for the light loss. Once you build light onto your film, a few extra pops here and there don't really change the exposure that much. Experience is the best teacher for this. Once you see the results of what you have done a few times you will have a pretty good idea how to get into the ball part and get fairly predictable results. To answer the last obvious question, I will explain a bit about the preparation of this image. Once the main print was made, I printed just the top half of the image onto the next larger size of paper. During the exposure, I used a piece of cardboard to block the light from exposing the bottom half of the paper. Once that exposure was made, I rotated the paper on the easel and repeated the process on the other half. With a little overlap, I now had a piece of paper with the sky and lightning on the top and bottom. It would be a strange but dramatic effect using the image itself as matting. The initial image was attached to the center of the matte print and image assembly was complete. The remaining finishing was simply a little wet dye to saturate the colors in the sky a bit and final lacquering. In the area of competition, it's a good example of "show the judges something that they don't see everyday." |
