People still ask about the Sumo shot and how it was done. Most think that it was done in Photoshop. Nothing in this image was photoshopped together. It was done in one shot. We painted a backdrop that looked like blurring trees. Even though the drop was painted to look like it was moving past it was still too sharp. To solve that and blend the drop into the Sumo in the foreground we set the drop on rollers so that we could roll it back and forth during the exposure. Using Tungsten lights on the drop in combination with a long shutter speed made it look blurry and blended the figure with the background.
The Sumo was lit with strobe lighting that froze him in place. The drop moving past blurred the edges of the Sumo so it blended together. The Sumo was too heavy to lean forward like he was ski jumping so we tilted the drop so he could stand up straight.
The Sumo was standing on the end of a 4 inch by 20 foot long piece of metal box iron that was welded to a tripod behind the drop. It had a lot of counter weight on the other end to counter balance the Sumo. There was a small slit in the back drop for the post to come through. We welded a plate that he could stand on and a metal band around his waist. The band was hidden by his sash.
The ski was attached to the foot rest. He could stand in there for about 20 minutes at the most before he was done. I could see the blood pooling in his legs. It was a little scary. The 4X5 Sinar View Camera was set at an 8th of a second shutter speed and f16 aperture. We rolled the drop back and forth to give some blur on the drop and him. It worked out well. Better than I had thought it would. You always wonder how well things are going to go. When a client calls and says lets fly a 400 plus pound Sumo on skis I casually say, “no problem”. Then when you hang up the phone you start to get a bit nervous. How in the world will we do that? It all comes together as you think and work on it.
