Looking at my blog for last week It caused me to reflect on the way I use to do images. I went to the archives and pulled out this shot of the boy flying off the bicycle. This was the inspiration for the girl on the Electra Bicycle. Heres how it was done.
The camera
This was shot on a 4X5 view camera. The exposure was 2 seconds at F16. The strobe at f16 gave me a sharp image of the whole set. The 2 seconds gave me blur on the set as if the camera was panning with the subject. The subject remains sharp but the set blurs. I tried to keep the hot light off the subject so that they would not blur during the long exposure. The set was pushed backwards so the blur was striking behind them.
The Set
The boy flying off the bicycle was done in one shot. The grass fence and sidewalk were on a rolling platform. The house tree and were on wheels that were tied to the rolling platform. There was an area between the fence and the house that was open to the Studio floor. In this area rested a metal post with 4 legs. From the post was an arm that come over the fence and attached to the bike. A second post came over the fence to suspend the boy. This keep the bike and boy locked to the post and unable to move as assistants rolled the platform underneath it. Incidentally it takes about 4 assistants to push this back and forth. Crazy. Most assistants don’t come back after a day of pushing this around all day.
Lighting
Strobes
I place 2 large soft boxes overhead as you can see in the pull back shot. This gives me a slight back light to give damnation to the people and an overall light. There is a small soft box on the people form the left and an umbrella behind the camera as a fill.
Hot Lights
The hot lights were used to make the blur. There are two hot lights on the grass in the front. There is one hot light very focused on the feet of the Dad. There is one on the house and tree. The last is on the Fence. All the hot lights were flagged off the people so that only strobe light hit them. It the hot light hit the people it causes them to blur as well and the effect was lost.
Thats a simple look at how this shot was done. I can’t believe that we went to so much effort to accomplish these shots. I do love the creative set process.
