Fly Away
A collaboration of creative minds came together to produce this image in the mountains of Santa Barbara.
A collaboration of creative minds came together to produce this image in the mountains of Santa Barbara.
Read less
Read less
Dec, 2017Views
108
Likes
Absolute Masterpiece
Outstanding Creativity
Top Choice
Superb Composition
Peer Award
Magnificent Capture
Top Ranks
Top 20 rank
Top 20 rankTop 10 rank week 1
Top 20 rank
Top 20 rank
Categories
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Discover more photos See all
Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken in the hills above Santa Barbara, CA.Time
This was a sunset golden hour in December of 2017.Lighting
Originally when the plan came to be for this shoot I had imagined placing the performer as more of a silhouette in front of the ball of the sun. I had planned to use my 100-400mm with a teleconverter to bring the sun closer and bigger in the image. However, when the shoot day arrived there was smoke from a near by fire that had consumed the air of Santa Barbara. With too many plans already in motion we all decided to head to the location and prey it was above the smoke covering in town. To our luck we were! This spot was just barely poking out of the top layer of smoke allowing us to shoot. The smoke did as you can see in the photograph obscure the sun, but it still created a nice colorful backdrop.Equipment
Canon 5DMKiii Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 Natural lighting Handheld (while laying on a boulder)Inspiration
This shoot was inspired by another performer not featured in this image but that was on the shoot. She had meet a traveling rock climber in this location a week prior to our shoot and they brainstormed the concept. The performer had the silk and the rock climber had the rigging experience and know how to setup a fail safe system with three different types of anchor to hand the point from. The purpose for having three anchors is that way you have room for any equipment and/or environment that fails, keeping the performer safely in the air. I knew both these performers well and was invited to photograph the experience.Editing
Yes I did some post processing in Lightroom. My adjustments where minor as the landscape really showed off perfectly. Some contrast/saturation, radial mask for a slight vignette, and some sharpening/de-noising.In my camera bag
Being a shooter of both photos and video I usually have two camera bodies, my Canon 5DMKiii for photos and my Sony a7sii with an adapter for my canon glass. I own a focal range from 12mm to 400mm but for this shoot I only brought my telephoto lens and a flash. I knew we would need to operate on the fly given the factor of smoke as well as cold temperatures, so for this reason I did not bring my tripod.Feedback
I must first state that this shoot had a very dangerous element to it and I would not suggest trying to do this. Everyone involved in this production was a professional and knew the inherent risks. But with each person bringing their respective skill sets, proper planning, and a test shoot, we were able to pull off an incredible shoot! This is still one of my favorite captures I have created. If you feel you have the right team together and are planning an outdoor aerial shoot please make sure that safety is your top priority at all costs. Test your equipment, come prepared, and being willing to cancel if something puts the performer at jeopardy. For this shoot on the day of, the rigging took about an hour to safely setup (this was with the knowledge of what worked on the test shoot). The performers came prepared already wearing their outfits under warmer layers so that they did not freeze hiking to the location from the car. Since the temperature was cold the actually shoot time was only about 10 minutes; 5 for each performer. Proper planning made for great success during our experience.
