Publication: New York Times
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
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| 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.
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| 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. |
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| OverXposed Pro Mini remote plate, mounted with lighting pins on the bottom to be set on grip heads. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| Both remotes were bagged to protect the cameras and lens from the sand and were triggered buy PocketWizard-MultiMAX. |
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| 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. |
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| 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:
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