Hello folks! I wanted to share a project I did for a dance company a while back.
This project took about 4 months in planning and about a week to engineer and test. I created a rain maker on the cheap! How else would it rain in Oregon in the middle of the summer? (Ok don't answer that.. it is still Oregon.) Along with my home made rain maker, I used a fog machine to add greater atmosphere. The combination of rain and fog just looks stunning!
I wish I had taken more photos of the process in a "how to" but we were in a hurry to get everything built so I handed my back up camera body to one of the dancers and let her have fun with it. I think its funny when you see images and videos online done in expensive studios and beautiful locations and photographers tend to think that they have to have both to create beautiful images. It just isn't true. My location was on someones private drive and we created an artificial weather environment that didn't exist naturally that night. I do however have a little bit of details of how the session was put together after the final image set. Overall we did something fairly original and everyone had fun!
More examples of my work on my website: www.michaelbrinkerhoff.com
1.
The rain maker is on the left. Most of the gear here. I basically brought half of my portable studio gear. As a locational photographer, I don't need much and I dislike hauling lots of gear if I don't have to. Keep it simple and lightweight! http://www.michaelbrinkerhoff.com/photos/Rain_Fog_Dance_Making_Of_001.jpg
2.
My assistant for the day in the front putting together the lights while I work on the Rain maker in the back. We are super casual guys. With the exception of weddings, dressing up just isn't our style. Why dress up if you are just going to get dirty? http://www.michaelbrinkerhoff.com/photos/Rain_Fog_Dance_Making_Of_002.jpg
3.
The rainmaker is tricky thing because if you put too many holes in the pipe the water doesn't make it the entire way. If you put to few holes then you have it spraying water instead of dripping. I punched a few holes in the underground tubing and put mini sprinklers inside. I later covered up a few holes with tape as I soon discovered I made a few too many. We worked quickly but It really was a trial and error on the spot. Total cost for this project was $90. (not including lighting gear/fog machine) http://www.michaelbrinkerhoff.com/photos/Rain_Fog_Dance_Making_Of_003.jpg
4.
After we put the rainmaker up, we realized how badly was bowing and it only got worse once the water was up there. You can see me thinking to myself "What a piece of $#%^. Lets fix it!" With some rope and some metal pipes, I was able to help stabilize the structure enough so the rain maker didnt bow as bad. Satisfied with this progress we moved on to putting the lighting gear up. http://www.michaelbrinkerhoff.com/photos/Rain_Fog_Dance_Making_Of_004.jpg
7.
This is basically the view I saw for most of the evening. The whole neighborhood was super cool about everything. We had a crowd for about two hours who were just interested in watching what was going on. We were on location for 4 hours. We packed up and left a few minutes before midnight. http://www.michaelbrinkerhoff.com/photos/Rain_Fog_Dance_Making_Of_007.jpg
The one nagging thing we had to put up with on this shoot was the Fog. I spent a little extra to get a good fogger and the best fog juice I could find. The fog machine produced a lot of quality fog but the wind was happy to sweep it away. When the fog came towards us and in between the dancers and the camera we had to take a break. The wind was a little unpredictable. It would go up/down/left/right in a hurry. Getting the right pose and expression was hard enough, the fog created an additional variable that made everything more challenging. Having an extra assistant and another fog machine would have made this shoot a bit faster. Doing this in a large indoor space would have been better. Next time right?
For those who are curious here is the equipment I used:
Nikon D3s - ISO 200 1/250s (Honestly could have done this with the D700 or a plethora of other cameras, but the curtain times are quicker on the D3s so this was my ideal choice )
Sigma 85mm 1.4 - This lens handles flare and ghosting from back lighting very well. Only some mild purple color flaring in some shots. Hardly noticeable and usually quite pleasant to have)
Paul C Buff Radio triggers and lighting gear
1/2 Power Large softbox to the left.
1/4 Power Medium octobox to the right.
1/8 Power with a cone modifier in the back.
Really great post, appreciation all the setup info here. Love the rain shots, but could go with or without the fog machine. The fog is awesome in 5 & 6, totally misses in 2, and is okay in the others. I'd like to have seen some shots with no back lighting and no fog. But these, as they are, are fabulous! Great job! thanks for sharing.
film_4ever wrote:
Very cool images ! Really like image 1 !
The models must all be dancers, as they appear to know what they are doing.
Thanks for including the story on the set-up. (Wow, no sand bags on the soft box stands?)
Where's the celebratory photos with everyone doing 12 oz. curls at the end of the shoot ?
TFS. Very interesting post.
Oh that would be nice! Here in Oregon even in the heat of summer we have temperature drops down in the 50's. Everyone was shivering and really tired. It really was hard work for everyone. I know I could have used a beer at the end.
friscoron wrote:
Really great post, appreciation all the setup info here. Love the rain shots, but could go with or without the fog machine. The fog is awesome in 5 & 6, totally misses in 2, and is okay in the others. I'd like to have seen some shots with no back lighting and no fog. But these, as they are, are fabulous! Great job! thanks for sharing.
I totally agree. The fog was really a hit or miss. We just kept pushing more and more fog in there until it looked good then we did the shots. Rinse repeat. Sometimes you had good fog, sometimes you had a better pose but so so fog.
Just a little bit of info into the editing process:
I shot a little loose as I had no idea were each dancer was going to be when they did their move. The space was a bit more cramped than the dancers would have liked. Everyone did their best to stay within the space. Most only required minor PS work. The stands and fogger cord took most of my time. I also purposefully under exposed the shots a bit to leave as much detail and color in the highlights. Once they are blown, they are blown.
