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The Whiskey River Standoff - Guns, Glory, and NASCAR

 

Every now and then I get the chance to work on a project that could  potentially produce something worthwhile, so long as I can take all of the pieces and arrange them into some semblance of an interesting scene. A while ago I was involved in just such a project, on a whirlwind production day on Dale Earnhardt Jr's property that contains a full size Hollywood quality western town. This place is seriously impressive, with a church, hotel with livable quarters, stables, and even a working and fully stocked bar. It even has a great name, Whiskey River, which coincidentally shares it's name with a more modern version.

I've been on quite a number of NASCAR related shoots and they all have one common issue - there are so many interested parties invested and so much money involved in working with these drivers that the clients all have to piggyback on each other's productions to get what they need. Inevitably the day is based around a video spot which as any still photographer knows, it means that they are going to come second. I was working (as I often do) with Walter Arce and we knew the drill - get there early, set up, and wait for a really really long time, check our facebook feeds over and over, eat too many carbs, (why is catering always entirely comprised of carbs?)  until you get ten minutes with the talent. Luckily for us there were multiple drivers that day, and they were staggered to us between takes for the commercial.

The theme for the shoot was about, not suprisingly.... cowboys. There were some great props on set and some really solid make up artists and everyone looked their part. The drivers left to right are Jeff Hammond, Paul Menard, Junior Johnson, Carl Edwards and Mark Martin, some of the biggest names in NASCAR. Each driver was costumed in a way that spoke to their own character and in the end they all looked wonderfully authentic. We shot each driver separately as they arrived on set and tried to keep the lighting exact, though a few had to be shot another day.

With our lack of time came the question of what background to use. Walter sent one of his staff photographers to the town set while we were working with the drivers and told him to shoot High Dynamic Range brackets of everything he saw. He came back with a great angle of the saloon entrance, which worked wonderfully in the final image. I believe in the end we had a compelling image with a lot of character.

 

Large Format Photo Manipulation for Print

 

Partnering once again with Peter Taylor Photography, I was given the task of creating a 26 foot banner that is now on permanent display in the Charlotte office of Northeastern University, a private research university based in Boston.  I tend to enjoy the more involved photo retouching projects so this was a fun one for me.

I assisted Peter on set both on location in Charlotte as well as in Boston. The first shoot took place at the Charlotte branch, which was the focus of this campaign. Using rough layout of the banner from Wray Ward we were able to decide on a camera angle and move forward. Since each key school personality was photographed individually and in different locations, careful detail was paid to insure that the lighting was uniform across the entire scene.  From one of the building's offices Peter and I captured roughly 80 bracketed exposures to create the large high dynamic range panorama that appears in the background of the final image. The same workflow and attention to detail was continued a week later when we flew to the main university location in Boston.

A few days and a several revisions later I delivered massive final (printing at 150dpi at 26 feet across makes for a rather large file!) which now is on display at Northeastern University in uptown Charlotte NC.  The most fun aspect of the banner is that it takes up most of the real estate of the office which faces the city's main thoroughfare.

This is a great example of why I enjoy working closely with my clients from an idea's inception to it's final completion. It isn't a stretch to say that any image can be improved upon, but including your retoucher in the conversation from the very beginning can greatly improve the end result.