Skate Ramp Photography – Wagner

After construction made it to a point where they could skate, Wagner asked if I could come back and get some shots of him rippin it up.

I’m not entirely happy with the lighting and background in this one, but the moment was cool so it was a keeper.

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I got there just at sunset, so we had little ambient light to work with. We turned on a few lights by the ramp, I gelled my flash with a full CTO, left it undiffused for hard shadows and an edgy look, and had a helper run around with it following the action. He didn’t think to keep the flash out of my fov, so a few pics have some really cool flare in them.

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I love shooting just after sunset, or just before sunrise; when the light is low, there are so many colors in the sky that our eye can’t see but the camera picks up. I love this blue, and this image is directly off the camera, with practically zero adjustment, only a very tiny bit of unsharp mask to punch it up.

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At one point my helper accidentally hit a button on the flash, and switched the mode. I had it set for manual, at 1/4 output, to get consistent and powerful lighting, and a dramatic effect. When he hit the button it switched to TTL mode, and the output dropped significantly. A few shots, like this one, worked out despite the change, and look even more dramatic. Serendipity!

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Aaron K.

Aaron Kondziela is a technologist and serial entrepreneur living in New York City.

 

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