Manchester based professional photographer | Neil Downie

View Original

Boundaries Project. Part 5

After I'd finished at the previous shoot, and warmed up a little, I decided to try and find somewhere on the other side of the runways that would have the setting sun in the background. I found a couple of possibles, one in particular that stood out.

So I headed back there about an hour before sunset, only to be confronted by another blanket of fog as the sun descended. I had hoped for some streaks of light from the landing planes in this, but alas there were 2 unsuccessful attempts at landing, and then it all went very quiet at this end. There was plenty activity up the other end with planes taking off, but down here it was eerily quiet.

I tried shooting with one light, camera right directed through the frame, with the subject about a metre or 2 back from the gate, and a much wider field of view. However when the fog descended, the water particles in it seemed to cause the light to reflect my strobe, and I could see visible lines of flash across the image. Add to that, the gate post that each gate was attached to was painted in fluorescent orange paint and catching any part of these with a strobe in the fog just looked horrid. So I decided to replicate a car's headlights. I initially thought why fart about setting up lights when I can just use the car lights themselves - no point re-inventing the wheel eh? Alas, that would have been just too easy - the car lights were way too bright and lit up the scene to the point of ridiculous. So it was 2 SB900s about 1 1/2 metres apart gridded, zoomed to 200mm, and directed straight at the gate from about 1/2 metre off the ground.

Again, I like the image, but it doesn't have the ambiguity I'm looking for - it's so dark, it just looks downright weird. I need to print it large, and canvas opinion.

Next I think I need to try this with a proper model! And a much better looking one....