About eight weeks ago, my son started playing Pee Wee football for the Oro Valley Dolphins. It was shortly after he started playing that I got this idea to shoot his helmet and a football on the field, at night. I wanted to paint with light and do the entire shot in the dark. The idea has been rattling around in my head for a while now and this past Friday night, I decided to get it out of my head and just go do it. So, here it is, 9 pm on a Friday night with no lights out on the field, and my son and I are out there lying in the grass and trying to set everything up, by flash light. Umm, well, OK. I'm out there trying to set up the shot, and he's over there playing a jedi from Star Wars or something, complete with sound effects, shining the flash light everywhere except where it would be helpful for me.
I ended up shooting about 30 photos, each one having a different lighting effect since when you paint with light, the lighting is never the same in any shot. After a few trial and error shots, I quickly got the hang of it. The original photos came out very nice, but it still lacked that gritty football look that I was hoping to achieve. Since my son has only been playing for 8 weeks, the helmet is still in pretty good shape, minus the scratches that you see. The football, although it's been used, looked pretty much new. Thankfully I was able to pull off what I was going for in Photoshop in only a few minutes time. My wife and I like both the original photo as well as this modified photo. I was torn as to which one to post, but ultimately I went with the idea that had rattled around in my head for so long. Next week, I'll post the original photo and you can decide which one you prefer.
Categories: [Canon 30D] [Night time] [Portfolio] [Sports]
Tags: arizona dolphin football oro_valley painting_with_light
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Nice combination, a really cool product shot.
Claus Petersen on 21st September 2009 @ 9:24am
Nice shot, Ken. You are talented with that camera of yours. Wish I had the time.
John on 24th September 2009 @ 8:44pm
This shot is very cool.
Jenn on 25th September 2009 @ 2:17pm
Thanks everyone. Wait until next week to see the original shot. It's very, very flat compared to this one, IMHO.
Ken Dobson on 25th September 2009 @ 2:25pm