Sunday Andrew and Matt of The Visual Collective and I had our year-end wrap-up meeting. After a few hours we decided that what was/is the most fun about the whole Visual Collective thing is getting out there and doing stuff. So with that in mind we re-visited our founding roots and the three of us headed out into the wilderness, lights and models in tow to see if we could have some fun and create some nice images…
Andrew drove us out Schultz Pass road just north of Flagstaff. On the top of a mountain we found high winds, freezing temperatures and radio communications towers…
There was a warning though
I liked the way that some of the dead trees up here mimicked the look and feel of the lifeless radio towers that share this mountain top. Andy is being a photo ninja somewhere in the grass in the above frame…
More structures. I think that many of these will make nice additions to my Industrial Composition portfolio (I really love shooting power lines and the like)
Our Fearless Leader, Matt.
Leah was a first timer to The Visual Collective but took being on the top of a frozen mountain immersed in clouds quite well.
Later we moved a little further down the hill and found an Aspen grove where I set up some lights and did a quick portrait sesh…
Alexandra is an old friend of us here at tvC and has been on a few of our outings. She is no stranger to the difficult situations we are prone to put ourselves in to capture better images. Check out some images of our first outings to Twin Arrows here… (they are mostly black and white, there are a few color versions on my portfolio site)
Another view of the same location…
For those of you so inclined, here is the set up shot.
My ambient exposure was about 1/125 @ f/9, I had the lights both at about 1/2 power. There is a Paul C. Buff Einstein with a reflector in the background to light up the trees and give a little rim light. Up front is my Photogenic Monoblock with a soft-box on a V.A.L. (Matt). They are powered by a Vagabond Mini.
To see Matt’s edits from the day, head on over to the Vault-Photography Blog here… When it goes live, I will post a link to Andrews video vignette of the day as well…
Taylor Mahoney Photography 