It started with a basketball player with a huge wingspan, a last-minute order for a custom wingsuit called Mother Plucker Feather Company (yes, you read that correctly), an overnight drop-in train to North Carolina, some creative use of the letter c, and then a long pause from me after the shoot. Everything is forgotten.
The combination of the above leads to the simple fact that, twenty years after I commissioned these wings for a Sports Illustrated mission, they are still in my garage. They’ve traveled here and there, most recently to Romania, where I did the backlit banner photo above. We ran it on our Instagram feed this week and had… .questions.
Soft, peaceful images tend to require similar lighting. The backlit Angel is very simply lit, with a soft, large, wide and open Profoto white umbrella, with the B1X unit firing into it. Very poor. Just a little light to remove the darkness. A fill mass, suspended just below the level of its surroundings, as light as a feather. (Ouch!) The sun is doing the hard work here.
Above again, just open through Profoto B1X into a 4′ Octa softbox. Turn small into a dimly lit environment. I wanted the background to work well in terms of exposure value because I liked the rawness of the wall, and its airy, blue feel.
Angel images taken with a Nikon Z 7, with camera stabilizer on Gitzo has a system. A light, keep it simple, add wings. One of the hardest aspects of this trip was actually shipping the wings internationally. They appear to be made with feathers from real winged creatures, so they have to be steam cleaned and certified to cross the border.
Enjoy working in Romania, a country steeped in history, myths and legends. On the same day of taking pictures of the angels, I also made the pictures below. This old lab I took as soon as I found it. I put a Manfrotto Skylite board in the window to amplify the window light and shine a flash through it, just a little. Added a small, discreet shield from the ceiling. It was a day that made my light unobscured, unobscured by the eye of the beholder.
I work in Romania with a really intrepid production team, called Concept movies, run by dear friends, Ionut and Andrei. They easily find their way, know the players and find great positions and talent. Always looking forward to coming back. Hopefully soon. The wings will fly again!
More tk… ..
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