Spring Training detour - The Salton Sea (part 2)

Now with the successful sunset shoot at Bombay beach in the can, and the blurred memories of a long day of driving, it was time for a dinner and a place to crash. Finding the most convenient roadside hotel was high on the agenda as I was running on fumes. Unfortunately, under those conditions, my decision-making abilities were not at it's best! The only rooms available at this roadside hotel were smoking rooms. Well, it's been a while since I stayed in one, how bad could it be? After only 4 hours of sleep, I awoke with a massive headache and a sore throat. I knew instantly it was time to leave.

Back in the car again, I decided to just head back to the Salton Sea at 3:30 am to look for a place to shoot the sunrise. Before I knew it, I was on that earlier apocalyptic landscape of Bombay Beach. It was a known location in an unfamiliar area, where I knew there would be something to shoot at sunrise. Now with some two and half hours to kill, I took the opportunity to shoot some long exposure night scenes.

Fortunately, I was blessed with some high clouds and a near full moon. With the smell of dead fish and eerie sounds of birds in the distance as I trudged through the soggy salt, it was a perfect place for my imagination to take over. So armed with a flashlight to navigate and focus, and a tripod, it was time to make some images. This first image with lit by just direct moonlight, that set the scene but was not too dramatic.

After an hour shooting around the beach, I gravitated back to that earlier trailer structure, seeing it in a completely different way. With the high clouds and the moon shining bright, back lighting it, I found a familiar scenario where I would use an artificial light source to make the image pop. Wanting to see the details in the trailer while maintaining the dramatic skies, I light painted the trailer with the flashlight. Bouncing the cool LED light off my hand to warm up the look, I danced around the trailer during the 30-second exposures filling in the shadows. 

After making dozens of exposures and getting the light painting choreography down. This was my favorite image from that half hour of choreographed dance.

As the morning progressed, I waited for that magic stream of light.  It popped in and out, as the sun broke thought the clouds for about 45 minutes while I chased it around the beach. 

The following images were made during that short period.

 

With the sun, high enough in the sky to have lost it's golden glow, I wandered the shoreline again looking at the dead fish in the morning light. I was surprised how colorless the images were compared to the previous ones I had shot just and hour before. As the light was getting higher, I pulled out a color inferred converted camera and shot just a few scenes again before ending my glorious 12 hours adventure to the Salton Sea at 8 am. 

The last image is a monochrome converted color inferred image.

Spring Training detour - The Salton Sea (part 1)

It’s been over ten years since I have had an assignment during the MLB Cactus League Spring training in Arizona. This year I was fortunate to secure two separate assignments, one with the Oakland Athletics team photographer, Michael Zagaris, as his lighting collaborator and three days shooting for the European Photo Agency, covering the Oakland Athletics newest acquisition, designated hitter Hideki Matsui from Japan.

In the passed when I've worked for Jiji Press, a Japanese wire service and the San Francisco Giants, it was a fly in and out trip from Oakland to Phoenix. Now with all the airline carry on restrictions, added baggage charges, security hassles and lack of security for equipment. An 11 hour drive from northern California seems to be a less stressful way to travel. And for this trip, if I had to ship all the lighting gear, it would amount to a small fortune. 

 

Now with the stage set to hit the road, I have actually done this trip many times to visit friends in Phoenix. And every time it's been just motoring on through so I don't get in at an ungodly hour. This time I made plans to detour to the Salton Sea, a place I've heard about for many years. A location where many photo shoots have taken advantage of it's unique landscape. Just south of the Indio and the Palm Springs area, the Salton Sea developed into a tourist attraction in the 1920's, because of its water recreation, and waterfowl attraction to the area. However, in the 50's and 60's, environmental issues changed the seas salinity creating large fish die offs and the decline of tourism. Leaving nature to reclaim its rights to surrounding areas in a cruel and brutal fashion.

I had planned to arrive for a sunset shoot along the Salton Sea. But, since I had never been there before, a bit of research turned up a location on the eastern coast of the lake. Bombay Beach, built in the 50's, it has been a favorite destination for photographers for decades due to the wild and incredible decaying scenes of abandoned salt encrusted structures. Even with the best-laid plans, checking sun set times, TRAFFIC and the Highway Patrol will make a mess of anything. No, I did not get a ticket, but boy can they slow things up. I arrived at Bombay Beach with about 15 minutes of sun still visible, even though sunset was about 30 minutes away. After eight straight hours in the car, I quickly took advantage of the few golden minutes before the sun disappeared behind a local mountain range. As I worked the abandoned salt encrusted structures, which were barely recognizable, compared to images I found on the web, I felt a bit cheated. The structures were so decayed; it was hard to even recognize what they were. 

 

As the sunset, I found myself in a post apocalyptic scene. With the crunching of salt under my feet and the smell of decay, I wandered of to the shoreline, with a string of amateur photographers with tripods shooting the sunset.  Stepping over salted preserved fish along the sandy beach, I came to realize it was not sand, but the broken and crushed scales and bones of thousands of passed fish die offs, along with whole fish laying everywhere. 

As I watched the sky darken and the other photographers shooting the glowing skies, I walked along the shoreline hovering low with my camera trying to capture the true essence of the Salton Sea. Fortunately, the Internet has not reach the ability to offer a sense-o-rama feature. The smell was quite over whelming once you got down on your knees. Even after the sun set, the beach yielded an incredible over whelming sense of death that stared back at you through the pitch black eye holes of the dried salted fish.

Now only having about 30 minutes of shooting in, I knew I had to return. 

Assignment: Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport - from the archive

Client: Bugatti

Assignment:  Photograph the new Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport showing the open top variation of the car in the Napa Valley for it's US/California introduction. The Bugatti Veyron is the fastest production car topping out over 250 mph at the cost of 1.7 million.

Location: Napa Valley Reserve

This was my second shoot with a Veyron. The first shoot was for Business Week Magazine, a first person story about test driving the fastest production car in the world. Well, with that knowledge from the first shoot, I had a good idea what I was getting in to with this car. 

The shoot was planned for early June, with a few weeks out looking good for the weather. As the date closed in, there was the chance of showers for the day of the shoot. Fortunately a small front moved through the day before, granting me a clear day. Feeling good and the schedule holding, I looked forward to the shoot. The days script included three general locations,  a historic winery building, driving through Napa Valley, the Reserves winery tank room and a variety of details shots of both exterior and interior showing the open top roof. As for timing, the shoot was planned for the early morning for the driving shots and then to the historic winery, back to the Reserve for the details shots and the tank room.

Come the day of the shoot, a few things had changed. The cars were delayed in shipment, pushing the time to a 10am start. On top of that late hour, the car turned out to be white, which was to be shot near and through the mid-day sun. Needless to say I was in a slight panic. Adjustments to the scrip had to be made. We switch the to the second location for the first shot to take advantage of the light since the driving portion of the shoot was pretty much canceled. We would not be able to take the car out for a drive, due to the car I was shooting and it's driver, needed to be ready as a backup to the second car out on test drives with potential clients.

Location #1 - historic winery building in Napa Valley. The building front side was in shade but the sun was rising fast. Turns out, having the white car in the shade was perfect, since we had no time to light it. By the time the car was set to shoot, the sun revealed its self on the ground creeping closer the the car and creating washed out highlights in the foreground. At this point we were not able to move the car any closer to the building, which would reveal a drainage grate in the drive way.

Solution: An old Hollywood trick. Water down the ground to darken direct sun highlights.

SAFETY NOTE: being and shooting around expensive cars. Don't carry or have any sharp objects, keys, pens, watches and think about removing your belt or at least taping up the buckle. You don't want to take any chances when moving around or in a car costing 1.7 million.

Location #2 - With the change of plans and not having the ability to drive the car off the reserve, there was not a lot to work with except for the vineyards.

Luckily after a lot of questions asked, the reserve manager advised me about a long access road between vineyards on the property. With a quick survey and a quicker brainstorming session with my assistant. This road was going to be the solution. Well, that was it if we could find a way to get a high vantage point. Reserve manager to the rescue again, he offered a 40 foot high Genie boom lift that we could use. Great...now we just need to do set the car on the road, move the lift in to place before the sun moved out of alignment. By the time everything was set the sun was in line perfectly with the road at high noon just behind the car. Could not ask for a more perfect location when shooting a white car in the middle of the day!

During this elevated shoot, I used a variety of lens and a gyro to stabilize the slow shutter pan as the Bugatti raced down the access road.

  • Canon 5D MKII

  •16-35mm ƒ2.8

  • 24mm ƒ 3.5 Tilt shift

  • 50mm ƒ 1.4

  • 70-200mm F 2.8

  •Kenyon K-4 gyro

Location #3 - Exterior and interior shots showing the uniqueness of the open top of the Grand Sport.

This led to more brainstorming since we were still an hour or so after high noon and needed to get shot of the interior that was black when also showing potions of the exterior of the car. And I want to emphasize again, the car was white!

This is where some pre planing and an arsenal of equipment came in to play. First I flew an overhead silk, creating a giant soft box powered by the sun to help cut the harsh midday light. being extremely careful, double checking everything to ensure nothing was going to fall on to the car. With that done, the question was how were we to make a picture looking in through the open roof in to the cockpit of the car. And yes, they were not going to let me stand on the engine for this...

This is we a remote control boom arm, mounted with a Canon 5DMKII and a 16-35mm ƒ2.8 , triggered by a pocket wizard, did the job. This got the camera in to place over the car with out placing anything or person on the car.

Equipment :

   •  6 ft. Matthews artificial silk

   •  6 ft. ScrimJim frame

   •  2 - Matthews baby triple rollers

   •  Mathews Medium roller 

   •  Manfrotto Black Super Boom

   •  Canon 5DMKII

   •  16-35mmƒ2.8

   •  2 - Pocket Wizard Multi-Max's 

   •  50 lbs of sand bags.
 

 Location #4 - The reserve tank room. The challenge is dealing with the tungsten lights, which gives off a warm orange tonal shift when balanced to a daylight setting. But I decided to use it to my advantage.

Setting up this mixed light shot was pretty easy, once you identify the light sources and their values. The trick is calculating your exposure. With a fair amount of daylight entering the room that filled the front of the car and the over head lights giving the stainless steel tanks a copper look. I added one strobe to fill the rear quarter of the car and watered down the floor giving the room more depth. I then located the camera on a tripod in the doorway with a 24 tilt shift lens and a remote trigger, stepping aside not to block the incoming daylight with my body. With this 100 ASA, ƒ14 exposure for 5 seconds, it produced this (ICI) - In Camera Image.  An image pretty much ready to go out of the camera with a minimum amount of post production work for it to be ready for publication.

So finishing up this long day with so many changes and adjustments, I was pretty satisfied in what was produce. The key thought from this shoot, is to be ready to throw out your original script and be prepared for the unexpected. Never thought I would have to shoot a white car at high noon. You just never know!

Total Lunar Eclipse - Dec. 21, 2010

It's late in the evening on Dec. 20, the last of the four total lunar eclipse's in 2010, fell on the same day as the winter solstice, a rare cosmic event that hasn't occurred in centuries was about to start. The shadow of the earth is expected to pass between the sun and the moon, dramatically changing the color of the moon -- from bright orange to blood red to dark brown and perhaps gray. This eclipse will be visible across all of North America. Unfortunately the weather here in the San Francisco Bay Area this evening was not optimal for viewing any thing in the sky except for clouds...

High overcast blocking the a clear view of the moon. 22:18

I really wanted to see and photograph this eclipse, but with the weather being what it was, I really did not have my heart in if it was going to be a night sitting out in the cold watching the clouds floating by blocking any chance of seeing the eclipse. 

It's a round 9pm, 45º and there are a few light showers. It did not look promising with a lot of hight clouds with a few breaks of semi-clear skies floating passed. I decided to gear up for the shoot but I opted to do it from my driveway rather than heading to the Oakland hills for a darker location. It was going to be easier to setup and break down if the weather was not going to cooperate. Also I could plug-in a heater. :) Sitting out in the cold for 3-4 hours was not something I was looking forward too.

I had done this setup before, where I shot tethered to my MacBook Pro via USB to a Canon 5DMKII with a 400 ƒ 2.8 with TWO 2x tele-converters stack on each other, effectively pushing the focal length out to 1600mm. The 400mm was attached to a Wimberley head, stabilized with a K-8 Kenyon gyro. All atop a Gitzo Carbon tripod heavily weighted with two 12 lbs. shot bags. This gave me the ability to keep the tripod down to a lower more stable hight. I also use of Live View option in the camera which  helped in the stability locking the mirror up, eliminated the vibration from the mirror slap. This also made it easier to focus and track the moon since I was using conventional photographic equipment.

While setting up, I noticed that the flight patterns for commercial airlines to SFO had been re-routed over my house. While glancing up to the full moon prior to the lunar eclipse. I saw an airliner fly passed the moon. I've been looking for that shot where a plane passes across the moon, so along with gearing up for the eclipse. I had another 5DMKII with a 70-200mm, ƒ2.8 at the ready as more planes passed over head, hoping it would align with the moon for that shot. Many flew by but only one was close.

It was just off the mark and I thought, not this time. Planes were just not lining up wit the moon! But after looking at the take on the computer, I noticed a very interesting thing about the shot. With the plane flying low just above the clouds, the moon cast a large shadow from the plane to the top of the over cast skies creating a double ghost image. There is a faint but sharp outline of the plane and then the larger soft shadow seen from below. This was a promising sign for the night in being able to make images of the eclipse.

As the night went on, the eclipse started with only partial views of it popping through the cloud cover every once and awhile. Fortunately I was blessed to enough clearing during the lead-in to the eclipse. Yielding three images at the start with a full view, 1/8, half and then the faint view of the total eclipse. Contently manually tracking the moon was the most difficult part of the shoot. Not having an equatorial mount to track the moon, I needed to maintain a high shutter speed as the moon tracked across the sky. It was during the total eclipse I removed one of the tele-converters to increase the aperture to maintain the high shutter speed. At the peek of the eclipse the fastest I was able to achieve was 1/5 of a sec. @ ƒ5.6, 800 ASA, at 800mm, giving the last image I shot just a bit of softness due to movement. After I made the total eclipse image, the cloud cover thick-end, ending the nights celestial viewing. Below is my four image sequence of the 2010 Lunar Eclipse.  Enjoy the magic.

Full moon @ 22:14:53 pst

Start of the lunar eclipse 22:34:24 pst

Lunar eclipse @ 23:10:45 pst

Total lunar eclipse at 23:46:52 pst

Assignment: PISMO BEACH - from the archive

Publication: New York Times

Received assignment: Thursday 03/22/2010 9:00 AM

Slug: 2DAYSPISMO

Headline: Old-School Surf Town, Pismo Beach, CA

Photographer Assigned: DaSilva, Peter

To be shot: Sunday 03/27/2010 08:00 PM

Deadline Date: ASAP

Summary: >PHOTO MEMO:Old-School Surf Town Pismo Beach, CA

This daytrip-style piece for Escapes section will focus on the laid-back qualities and old-school charm of the central coast beach community of Pismo Beach, CA., about 175 miles north of Los Angeles.

Forget about the glitz of Malibu--think bikes, kites, dunes buggies and cold Coronas.

--The Oceano Dunes State Park, the only state park that allows dune buggies and 4-wheel drives on the beach.

--The Sky's the Limit Toy & Kite Shop

--Tomasko Salt Water Taffy

--Old West Cinnamon Rolls

--Banana-seat bike at Beach Cycle Rentals

--Pismo Beach Pier

--Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes National Wildlife Refuge

--SeaCrest Resort 

--Mo's Smokehouse Barbecue

Lower remote angle as we were following a custom sand rail through the dunes. I am in the passenger seat triggering the remote with a Pocketwizard MulitMAX and shooting with a Canon 5DmkII, 16-35mm ƒ2.8.

This Escapes assignments was one of those shoots that sounds like a fun trip, but always ends up being a ton of work. I was given 2 1/2 days to fulfill the requirements to illustrate this story. Starting with about a day of phone calls to make arrangements, which is not included in the assignment, to visit the 9 different locations. Once I make a schedule out that kept me moving in one direction, rather than backtracking across town all day long. I started thinking about how much time I would need per shoot, travel between location and what and how I will be doing the shoot.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the 2 1/2 days includes travel time. That's the 4 hrs/ 240 mile down from the San Francisco Bay Area to Pismo beach and back.

This assignment had a priority shoot and this is what I wanted to focus on in this post. The lead of the piece was about being able to drive dune buggies at Oceano Dunes State Park. I was advised by the writer that I should rent a dune buggy to be able to reach the area where hundreds of off-road drivers play in the dune. In my arrangements, I made plans to rent a dune buggy from Sun Buggie Fun Rentals. But this is where the problem came in to play, how do you shoot while driving? I decided the best way to optimize the shoot, was to mount remote cameras on the dune buggy to get the most of the shoot with different points of view. After approaching the owner of Sun Buggie, he offered to send me out with a driver, his son, so I could concentrate on the shoot. 

The following images show the camera remote rigs I setup for the shoot. You will notice there is a red and blue buggie set with the remotes. Well, ten minute in to the dunes, the red buggie broke a drive axle. So a half hour later, after switching the cameras over to a replacement buggie some 4 miles out in the middle of the dunes, we were off to find the other off-road enthusiast with two remotes and one hand held camera.

Here are links to the New York Times story Where the Old California Spirit Comes to the Beach to Play and image slide show illustrating the story.

The 80+ lb. black Pelican case holds most of my remote clamps and hardware, which includes Magic arms, OverXposed remote plates and lighting pins, Matthews grip heads, ball heads, 3/8" stainless steel rods, super clamps and misc. hardware. The Orange Pelican case was for other cameras which also traveled in the dune buggy for protection from the sand.

OverXposed Pro Mini remote plate, mounted with lighting pins on the bottom to be set on grip heads.

Lower side location: 2 Super clamps and magic arms and a Matthellini clamp and grip heads mounted to the bottom of the OverXposed platform with a ball head and Canon 5DmkII with a Sigma 14mm ƒ2.8 lens. Another clamp will be added to the hot shoe of the camera for more stability.

Upper location: 2 Super clamps and magic arms mounted to the hot shoe lighting pin atop the Canon 1DmkIIN with a Sigma 14mm ƒ2.8 lens. A super clamp and quick release plate was used to mount the camera. I always mount my remote rigs with a three point system for better stability.

Both lower and upper mounts with the three point mounting system.  Two rock solid remotes able to capture video with out any vibration in the image.

Both remotes were bagged to protect the cameras and lens from the sand and were triggered buy PocketWizard-MultiMAX.

Lower side location: 2 Super clamps and magic arms and a Matthellini clamp and grip heads mounted to the bottom of the OverXposed platform with a ball head and Canon 5DmkII with a Sigma 14mm ƒ2.8 lens. Super clamp with a Matthews small grip heads and a 3/8" stainless rod to the hot shoe pin mount at the top of the camera for more stability.

Lower remote angle as we were following a custom sand rail through the dunes. I am in the passenger seat triggering the remote with a PocketWizard-MultiMAX and shooting with hand held Canon 5DmkII, 16-35 ƒ2.8.

Top remote angle as we were following a custom sand rail through the dunes. I am in the passenger seat triggering the remote with a PocketWizard-MultiMAX.

Remote camera rig equipment list: 

Oops, I'm blocking the remotes. So much for the one armed self-portrait.

• 1 - Canon 5DmkII
• 1 - Canon 1DmkIIN
• 2 - Sigma 14mm ƒ2.8 lens
• 1 - OverXposed Mini Pro Platform
• 4 -  Bogen Magic arms
• 6 - Matthews Super clamps
• 1 - Matthellini 6" clamp
• 2 - OX hotshoe lighting pin mounts
• 3 - Matthews grip heads
• 2 - Matthews mini grip heads
• 3 - Cardellini connectors
• 1 - 12" 3/8" stainless rod
• 2 - Pocketwizard MultiMAX transceivers
• 2 - plastic shopping bags!

Assignment: NIGHT OUT - from the archive

Publication: New York Times

Received assignment: Thursday 03/11/2010 02:00 PM

Slug: Night Out

Headline: Night Out with Benjamin and Peter Bratt

Photographer Assigned: DaSilva, Peter

To be shot: Sunday 03/14/2010 06:00 PM

Deadline Date: *Need pix by Monday, 3/15, at 10 AM EST.

Summary: A Night Out with Benjamin and Peter Bratt.  They are planning a cruise in Benjamin’s low-rider, thought that would be a good place to start, with the view of the Bay Bridge in the background.  Sounds like at some point, they will stop for a bite at La Taqueria.  

Peter & Benjamin Bratt along Mission Street. This was the final edit that was published.

Night Out assignment is Style section piece where a photographer and writer document an evening out with a notable personality. This one was with Benjamin and Peter Bratt that coincided with Peter's new film "La Mission" starring his brother Benjamin.

I was advised that we were going to tag along in Benjamin’s low-rider as we made our way around the Mission District of San Francisco. This immediately through up a red flag for me, how was I going to make pictures of the two Bratt brothers from the back seat of a car. Luckily, my editors at the New York Times give me the freedom to think and work outside the box with full support.

The question was how do I show these to guys cruising the Mission in a low-rider and make it interesting. These are the first ideas that popped in to my head. Anything I came up with also had to be coordinated with the Bratts and their publicist in LA. I only had two days to plan for this shoot.

(1) Shoot from another car. This takes an extra person and a fair amount of logistics to coordinate two cars through a dense and crowded neighborhood. This also takes the spontaneity out of the shoot and it becomes a setup image.

(2) Place a remote camera on the hood facing back so you can see them driving.

(3) Just shoot from inside the car.

#1 - Out of the question, no budget for an assistant and logistically impossible to   shoot from car to car in two lane streets in San Francisco.

#2 - Need to get the Ok from Benjamin to place a 40+ lb. camera rig on his $30,000 paint job.

#3 - Boring!

After a few phone conversations with the publicist, I realized if I wanted to do the camera rig, I needed to prove to them it was going to be safe and the image was going to be different and great! There is nothing better than a test image to demonstrate your idea.

So on Friday night I started to setup the camera rig on my own car to test its stability and to create an image to show the Bratts. After about an hour of rigging and wiring I took it out for a test drive. There is nothing like a 70-mile and hour drive with 40 lbs suction cup rig with a Canon 5D MKII, a 14 mm lens on your hood tethered to a Mac Book Pro. It work perfectly the first time and have done other rigs like this, I had no worries about it staying put.

Test camera rig on my car, needed to use a double suction cup setup due to the raised center ridge on the Impala which I also had on my Lincoln.

After testing, both shooting still images and running some HD video. I sent a test image of my self to the Bratts and awaited an answer. The next day I spoke with Peter and the only hitch was he needed to find out from the cars painter to see if it would be an issue. Other than that, it was a go for the camera rig.

So on the day of the shoot, I showed up early. We were to meet at an open pier on the San Francisco waterfront near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. As I was waiting, a 1963 Chevy Impala, dark maroon drove on to the pier with a couple in it. I figured it was Benjamin’s car, but Benjamin was nowhere to be seen. It was a friend who was storing it here in the Bay Area, since Benjamin lives in LA. Before you knew it. Peter, Benjamin, and the painters showed up. After a short discussion and assurance from the painter that the suction cups were not going to hurt the paint job, it was a go!

Peter & Benjamin Bratt with the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

Therefore, we started with a few images of Benjamin and Peter with the car and the bridge. From there, I setup the camera rig, wire the computer and rigged the dashboard light which took about 20 min. to get up and running. With me sitting in the back seat, Mac Book Pro in hand, I captured the images directly in to the computer as I monitored the shots via Live View.

Remote camera rig equipment list:

My one armed self-portrait with the Bratts.

• 1 - Canon 5DmkII
• 1 - Sigma 14mm ƒ2.8 lens
• 1- Linhoff ballhead
• 2 - 10" Woods suction cups with cheese plates
• 1 - OverXposed Pro Platform
• 5 -Matthews grip head
• 5- Matthews mini grip heads
• 4 - 3/8' stainless steel rods
• 9- OX Gear lighting pins
• 1- Hot shoe lighting pin 
• 15 m. USB cable
• 15" Mac Book Pro (Canon Utility software-tethered shooting)
• 6 - Custom LED lights strips (dashboard light) tungsten balance.