Ron Shoots

We’re continuing our exploration of all things farming in North Dakota! Sunflowers are certainly the most spectacular with acres and acres of bright yellow fields. While the sunflowers follow the sun in the early part of their growth, their heads are now all pointed to the east.

Here’s a few of the shots:

We’ve been carrying a 6 foot ladder for this trip- helps give that extra few feet of height for different compositions, and getting above the crops. The handheld Quantum flash is popping in some extra light on our model since we were shooting at the midday sun. The flash has a 12×12 mini-softbox atachment to soften the overall look.

We’re up in the northern part of North Dakota shooting harvest for the next week. Krista, our coordinator, set-up some great shoots with farm that has been working the land since their great-grandfather came from Norway to homestead.

Setting up these shots is probably like conducting an orchestra! For one of the shots, we had 3 combines and another tractor that all needed to be lined up. Fortunately, these guys really know their stuff and we were rolling in no time at all. The days out here are long, and both the RCS crew and farm workers deserve a ton of credit for really long days… The sun comes up at 6:15am, and doesn’t set until almost 9:30pm.

Seriously, “Scenic” is the name of the town! Just outside the Badlands National Park. Usually I’m looking for the “Kodak Moment” signs (should be Lexar compact flash moment now…), or the brown National Park camera signs, or, if I’m lucky… tripod holes left by other shooters (just kidding!). This time, the town was named Scenic. How could I go wrong?

Traveling this summer- here’s the Google map locating Scenic, South Dakota.

By the way, this is just a snapshot. I didn’t pursure model or property releases. Sometimes just a fun snapshot keeps the fun in photography, or serves as a visual “note” for a future production.

This time, literally “on the road” as in laying down on the road. Sometimes you gotta get low to get the shot. I do spend an inordinate amount of time laying on the ground.

(photo by Alex Chapple, age 13)

We’re traveling through the Southwest enroute to a shoot next week in North Dakota. Even though I’ve been on some of these roads a few times before, I enjoy looking for new perspectives. Everytime, the weather is different, or there’s an angle that’s new.

And this trip is a little different- usually I’m alone- this time my son Alex (age 13) is with me. As you might remember in a previous post, my kids are always the ones finding the new ways of looking at things!

I’m in Chicago for a 2 days. A helicopter pilot/friend on the East Coast was in the area filming a sporting event so the helicopter was already here. We shot last night and then again this morning to capture both sunset and sunrise. (By the way, the sun comes up early in Chicago in the summer- like 5:24am today!) We met at the airfield in the dark and were in the air headed towards the city at 140 mph by 5am. We lucked into just enough cloud cover for a nice sunrise and a narrow band of blue sky before the clouds overtook the entire horizon. Weather is just one of those factors where you never know! A few clouds always helps make a better sunrise or sunset.

The sunset shot above was taken with the Hasselblad H3D-39 and 35mm lens. Shutter speed was only about a 30th of a second, however with the gyro-stabilizer (KS-6 from Kenyon Labs), the camera can be hand-held at much lower shutter speeds.

Trying to find my way in the darkness of a hotel room, I grab my camera bag and quietly close the door behind me. Sunrise is only a few moments away and I’m trying to get down to the harbor as quickly as I can for a few early morning shots of the Sydney skyline. This was the scenario last month.

(Alex, my 13 year old son, finding better angles in Sydney than me!)

For many photographers, vacation is a major shooting opportunity, and even for a full-time shooter, there’s rarely moments that a camera is not far away. The art is in balancing vacation time, family time and making a few stock photos along the way.

Tips for balancing a successful holiday and a stock shoot.

Here’s a few practical suggestions that might help. Of course, we’re all at different stations in life. Some of us may have 2 teenagers (mine are 13 and 15), and others no children at all, but there should be a hint or two in here for anyone… [read more]

Happy 4th of July! These fireworks were shot last month on the beach in Surfer’s Paradise just south of Brisbane, Australia. There was a 3 day weekend and they were celebrating with fireworks shows. Oh yeah, and an ABBA tribute band… uughh.

Shooting fireworks is relatively simple. Definitely use a tripod and look at the LCD images until you get the right exposure. The EXIF data on the images showed a 3 second exposure at f/14 with an ISO200 setting. I would pop the shutter as soon as I heard or saw the rocket take off.

As my readers may know, I spend a ton of time on the road. Sometimes I’m shooting landscapes, sometimes just getting to the next location… or in the best of both worlds, doing both! The wandering is fun, almost sinful, to not have a specific schedule. On one recent trip, I made 2 rules: a) no freeways, and b) if the compass had a W in the heading (like SW, NW or simply W), I was going in the right direction!

As a business person, I balance the wanderlust with image goals. For example, I make myself create 50 images a day when I’m traveling. And this may seem crazy, but I rarely listen to music when I’m driving… [read more]

The RCS digital artists are a ton of fun! I just wanted to share the latest laugh to make the rounds of our group email. I’ve always wanted to be on the Simpsons! (You can turn yourself into a Simpson here.)

Creativity is all about play! Laughter, and sharing crazy stuff like this one- especially stuff that makes fun of me- is encouraged! I truly believe we are all more open to being creative if we’re laughing and having fun at our work.

I’m wrapping up a 3 week trip in Australia- part family vacation and part travel shoot. There have been a total of 5 sunny days out of 22, but that’s because its also winter “down under”. The country is beautiful- diverse landscapes, amazingly friendly people and easy for travelers.

Nine and counting down…

One of the top landscapes along the Great Ocean Road in Southern Australia is a collection of free-standing limestone columns known as the “Twelve Apostles”. Wind, rain and waves take their toll so now there’s only 9 remaining, with the latest collapse just last year. (Look for the pile of rocks in the front of the photo below.)

I can see why these columns fall down… on-shore gale force winds and rain squalls buffeted the tourist crowd as we made out way out to the viewing platforms. The sunsets are usually beautiful (at least, according to all the great stock shots I saw!) but today would have to be a stormy seas photo. That’s cool- I actually like all the emotion in the skies and ocean as an alternative.

For this shot, I worked with a 24-105 zoom on the Canon. Fortunately, the Canon 1DsMII is water-resistant so I don’t mind taking it out in nasty weather. To darken and intensify the skies, I used a half-grad neutral density filter. These filters darken one half the frame with a transition to clear on the other half of the frame. I also used the custom color balance setting pushing the color temp to warm up the otherwise really gray/blue scene.