There are quite a few things photographers will do for their shot. The Shot. Plenty of hazards we'll conveniently forget about. Anthony approached me about shooting this drop ledge at the far end of Tweedy. It wasn't a nice spot. It was too dark to shoot with natural light, had only one or two angles to shoot it from, the landing was 6-7 feet from a wall, a pain to light. It took 15 minutes to figure out a workable lighting. I told Anthony, "let's give it a shot". I asked him what trick? He said top porn. He then asked where was I going to shoot it from? My response: "at the bottom, against the wall". Wait what? He would land 4 feet out and force a sudden stop a hair's breath from me. Not only that, my human light stand, Abel, would be right next to me—as Anthony was doing a liu kang off this ledge. Nothing is more terrifying than 145 pounds of flesh and plastic coming at you and your job is to time the photo, and quickly pull back to avoid being hit while the guy next to you trying to do the same. It turned out to be an awesome shot under the less than ideal circumstances.
I suppose I value it because I put my camera and myself in harms way. okay, and Abel's life. ha. Or maybe because throughout the shoot, there was constant dialogue between skater and photographer about how to shoot, tricks that would work best, lighting, spot selection, and an understood trust. Trust that you'll make the best of the shoot. And of course not get kicked in the face.
Camera settings: 1/125, F/4.0, ISO 400.
Lighting: 580ex speedlite positioned camera left, 1/2 power. sb-25, gridded, being held 8 feet up behind the camera at 1/2 power (I think?).
