Behind the Exposure: Assignment: NIGHT OUT

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.