Posts Tagged ‘colder’
Time for a Cold One . . .
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010
In addition to being skilled in industrial photography, when shooting a cold-storage facility, architectural photography expertise is essential since shooting facility interiors and exteriors are a given. In shooting architecture, unlike other forms of product photography, the product (building) and the lighting (sun) can’t be moved. Exterior shots entail optimum positioning of the sun. When shooting ultra-wide-angle lenses, lens flare may occur on the lens elements whether it’s a bright overcast sky or a direct sun. Try retouching these flares in your editing program and plan on a bear of a time-consuming job.
Day 2 of the Oregon facility shoot started at 6 a.m. The shadows were still a bit long into the parking lot, but figuring we’d get our shadows out of our images with Photoshop, we began shooting one side of the building right away as there were no cars parked in front, giving us a clear shot. After the doors were opened, we shot inside the loading dock, including the length of the dock and details such as glycol valving. Next came the automatic sliding doors going into the main freezer and since our client wanted an image created with a forklift being driven out of the automatic doors, with condensation vapor around it, this came next. Setting up a studio strobe in the freezer to backlight the lift and driver made for a beautiful shot. See Image #1.
Image #1
Next, on to the roof. Up two flights of ladders. Not ladders in the classic sense, but stairs with narrow steps where feet are placed sideways to make full contact. Once up the stairs, a hatch in the ceiling brought us onto a roof with white rubberized coating to reduce heat from the sun, and piping of either shiny metal or a white outer pipe enclosure with insulation over the inner pipe. See Image #2. Due to considerable glare, the whiting out of image detail is a factor we needed to overcome. (Think capturing detail while shooting white snow.)
Image #2
With the temperature in the 90s, in and out of the piping we maneuver, taking a lot of roof images, including a refrigeration condenser as big as a small two-story metal house. Housing multiple person-sized fan blades, this unit can make quite a loud roar. See Image #3.
Image #3
Down the ladders we go to the engine room, an important area to our client because of its unique two-level design. The upper level has a catwalk with piping and other apparatus. Not having enough light for good images, up the narrow stairs to the catwalk we strobes, strobe batteries (20 lbs. each), light stands and umbrellas in hand. See Image #4.
Image #4
After shooting the upper level, we head down to the lower level to shoot several hours of pipes, pumps, and tanks, with the aforementioned lighting utilized for many of the images. See Image #5.
Image #5
After a short break with an apple and sandwich, it’s time for the freezer. It waits for us with brutal cold. We enter the chill with the wide-angle lens camera for the overall freezer. The camera with a longer 18-200 mm zoom for a detail shot of an evaporator three stories above us will be retrieved later. Each camera will last about 20 minutes before it freezes or its batteries weaken. Figuring a face will not last much longer, on goes the ski masks. No more frozen faces for these shooters.
We normally take nine different exposure levels of each view to get a good lighting spread, but, in this environment, time is of the essence so we limit it to five. Using a higher ISO than we would use elsewhere to make higher shutter speeds possible, we take a number of shots from different vantage points.
Now it is time to retire the wide-angle camera and get the longer lens camera. The camera and lens go in a clean plastic turkey oven bag, the air is squeezed out, and the bag is sealed with a tie. The bag and the camera are cold and dry, keeping condensation from forming on the camera and its guts. We leave the freezer, put the camera in its bag, and take in the long-lens camera. The tripod was left in the freezer so as not to get wet with condensation and quickly freeze when taken back in. The tripod head has grease on its pivots and it freezes anyway so we slowly get it moving again. It pays to remember that metal is brittle at this temperature and can shatter or crack if too much force is applied. We take the rest of the images and prepare the long camera to leave this environment as we did the wide-angle camera. The cameras are now useless to us for the rest of the day. If taken out of the bags, they would get wet, the lens elements would frost over, and moisture would form between the elements, resulting in mold. So the cameras and we are done for the day.
An exciting day in the freezer no matter how many layers makes for numb bodies, but the wonderful memories, new friendships, and the great photography make one warm all over. So bundled and warm down the long road we go. The next stop is a quick rest and many days of editing great images for the eyes of our client. And us? We’re ready for the next cold one . . .
-Gary Silverstein
