Slugpuppies

Here we are back to my ongoing practice with airborne paint sculptures.  I spent all of Sunday in a dusty, filthy, awesome abandon facility creating images for the local band The Slugpuppies and their upcoming album Emo Therapy.  This project was their brain child and yet serendipitously syncs with my testing for an upcoming paint project.   As with all tests though, I learned a few things.

In the last test I realized the flash duration on my Profoto Pro7B and shutter speed on my Canon 1Ds Mark II were not truly suited to the concept in mind.  Then one brisk day last fall at the Eddie Adams Workshop my good friend Cliff Hausner of Profoto introduced me to the new Pro8a Air.  I won’t attempt to define the specs on this new pack you can check on them for yourself.  However, to give you an idea I will share this with you, at the farm we photographed a subject on a trampoline with a Nikon D3 at 11 fps at f16 and the camera buffer filled before the pack ever missed a discharge.  My inner dialogue shouted  “This is the pack for me,” only to discover it is an 11k investment.  Thus relegated to renting for now I went out with one on Sunday.  To my enraged dismay I discovered that contrary to the rental houses assurance the Pro7b head does not work on the Pro8a Air pack and so returned to 1… 2… 3. GO.  One action, one spray, one shot,  all said and done though we created some nice frames.

The band showed up with paint shooters, 15 gallons of paint, suit jackets, even craft services and we spent the better part of the day going for it.  I think their album and promotional art will look amazing and look forward to seeing them perform in those jackets.  On the back side of the test I realized I am going to have to really take a long look at the lighting style and paint deployment to make the next one sing.   For now I celebrate the joy of airborne color and simultaneously realize the images lack the sense of organic subtly I want out of  the final project.  Till next time.

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