A Game of Inches: The Suit That Kept a Photographer Alive https://petapixel.com/2024/12/12/a-game-of-inches-the-suit-that-kept-a-photographer-alive/ #blairbunting #u2dragonlady #edgeofspace #dragonlady #photoshoot #Spotlight #editorial #interview #spacesuit #features #spyplane #Space #space #gear #u2
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Behind the Tip-Off: The Making of the NBA’s 2025 Ad Campaign https://petapixel.com/2024/11/21/behind-the-tip-off-the-making-of-the-nbas-2025-ad-campaign/ #advertisingcampaign #blairbunting #advertising #basketball #billboards #photoshoot #Spotlight #Features #campaign #olympics #highend #nba
Photographing High-End Portraits at MLB’s Spring Training https://petapixel.com/2024/02/29/photographing-high-end-portraits-at-mlbs-spring-training/ #commercialphotography #majorleaguebaseball #springtraining #blairbunting #Spotlight #portraits #baseball #mlb
Photography and The Art of Moving Forward
#features #art #blairbunting #grief #personal #trainphotography
What is Split Color Lighting, and How Do You Use It?
#educational #tutorials #advanced #advertisingphotography #blairbunting #commercialphotography #howto #lighting #lightingtechniques #multiplecolors #splitcolor #techniques
Revisiting the Canon 1D, 20 Years Later
It was my first year in college. I was going out every day to teach myself photography, Harry Potter had just come out in theaters, and Canon entered the digital photography world with its very first fully backed flagship, the Canon EOS 1D. At the time, I was shooting on the Canon EOS D30, and didn’t see any way in sight of affording the 1D, but also didn’t think I really needed it either. Then came the moment that I first held one.
I was with my friends, Fred Miranda and Ben Horne, walking around the San Diego Wild Animal Park, and for the first time found myself having extreme camera envy. While the D30 that I was using was great and had helped teach me the balance of light and focus, the 1D was in a category all its own. After I returned home from California I spent months buying and selling camera gear, and even creating my own lenses, just to afford the 1D. Taking on a diet of bean and cheese burritos from a Mexican restaurant next to my apartment, I streamlined my expenses, and when some refurbished 1D’s came onto the market, I bought one.
I can still remember when it arrived. There wasn’t a formal box, as it was a refurbished unit, but rather a plain white box containing the body and accessories. Upon picking it up, it was a camera that felt solid, refined, and robust enough to build an entire career on… and that’s what I was lucky enough to do. I took it everywhere with me, from classes at ASU to summer vacation at my grandmother’s house in Illinois. It was actually the first camera I ever took to the train tracks with me, all the way back in 2002.
I would go out at all times of the night and day to learn it. From how to hand hold it for a long exposure, to knowing where the sensor liked the exposure to be, learning the ins and outs of it allowed me to be confident enough to apply for my very first photography job, an internship at the Arizona Republic. It is with the 1D that I would develop a career path and appreciation for the people that I would photograph. From celebrities and athletes to social workers, lab scientists, and even the pet of the week, I gave them all my time and attention behind the lens and 1D.
At the time, the mid-range zoom from Canon was the EF 28-70 f/2.8L, and was one that I wasn’t the strongest on. I felt the contrast and subject isolation were a bit difficult to nail, and I actually opted instead to shoot primes -- all primes. I carried with me a 35 f/1.4L, 45 f/2.8 TS-E, 50 f/1.4, 85 f/1.2L, and 135 f/2L everywhere I went. Yes, my shoulder was toast at the end of the day, but the images from the primes were worth the pain. Looking back at it now, I can understand why the other photographers at the newspaper looked at me oddly, but wouldn’t have changed anything if I could.
As time passed, I went through a number of camera systems from a lot of different companies, but a part of my heart lives with the 1D, as it helped build my aesthetic and confidence. That is why I spent a couple of years back around 2018 trying to find one in as close to new condition as possible. I knew the challenge would be tough, but after finding a new Nikon D1, I was driven to discover one, no matter how long it took. As fortune would have it, I did.
A Florida camera collector had one in new condition with almost no actuations on the shutter. I bought it immediately. Also, like with my Nikon D1, I was committed to using the camera to both see how it compares to modern platforms, as well as rekindle the nostalgia that came with such an important platform.
Over the period of a couple of years, I took it with me periodically to the train tracks and walked around just enjoying the sound of the mirror slap and feel of the shutter click. There is something so functionally simple about its ergonomics. The rear wheel is large and without a center button, the menu system is cryptic and you have to press a button just to remove the large nickel-cadmium battery. But God is it a wonderful thing to behold.
The heart of the EOS 1D is the sensor, a CCD. For those that haven’t shot on a CCD (as most of the market soon after the 1D went to CMOS), it is a sensor that is as beautiful as it is unforgiving. In many ways, shooting to an early CCD chip is like shooting chrome film. You get only a few functional stops of dynamic range, but the ones you have are nothing less than stunning. It is sharp, colors are punchy, and it can flash sync up to 1/500 of a second. However, like exposure, you have to be extremely careful to nail white balance, especially when photographing orange train engines as the orange in some images will shoot true, while with others it will drift towards red. Get the balance correct and you will be rewarded with images that hold up to any modern-day cameras, but at significantly less resolution.
This brings us to the question, “How does the twenty-year-old Canon EOS 1D hold up to modern-day cameras?”
It is a question that I started thinking about a couple of years ago when I started working with the 1D again. At the time, Canon had just released the 1DX Mark III and been kind enough to send one over for me to try out side by side with the 1D. What surprised me is that the two cameras are as much similar as they are different. The 1D is heavier but balanced well (especially with the 135 f/2L attached). The 1DX Mark III is lighter, as the industry has progressively dialed weight out of camera bodies with more complex materials over the last two decades. Also, while the ergonomics at first glance are near-identical, the 1DX Mark III has added more and more buttons for quick access. This helps photojournalists and sideline sports photographers to access even the most minute adjustment on the fly. For me though, I prefer fewer buttons and tend to make critical adjustments with shutter or aperture, but the more subtle ones I don’t mind hitting up the menu for. For me, shooting with the 1D was more conducive to relaxing, while the 1DX Mark III was more capable of creating.
This is where I had intended to end this story… and then came the R3.
To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect when first being briefed on the Canon EOS R3. I certainly didn’t look at it and think about the 1D, as the R3 is as modern looking as they come. Then, one day a box arrived from Canon with a production R3 inside, and as expected, I charged the battery (all while staring at the blinking dot) and immediately took it out to the train tracks. I went into this camera test with the idea in mind of how would it compare to the 1DX Mark III (or even R5), but within the first few minutes, realized I wasn’t shooting either one of those cameras, I was shooting the second coming of the 1D.
Creating with the R3 was like thinking, and muscle memory was fluid. I was again that 20-year-old kid walking around with a camera that he was proud of and could take on the world with. On a few occasions, I even took the two systems out together, one slung over each shoulder. In many ways, it was a perspective of photography that looked back at where we’ve come from and forward to where we will go.
All photos by Blair Bunting, taken on a Canon 1D.
About the author: Blair Bunting is an advertising photographer based in Phoenix, Arizona. You can see more of his work on his website, blog, Facebook, and Instagram. This story was also published here.
#equipment #inspiration #advertisingphotography #blairbunting #canon #canon1d #canonef #canonr3 #canonrf #classic #commercialphotography #landscapephotography #retrospective #revisit #trains
Can Certain Sunglasses Actually Make You a Better Photographer?
In ways much like the chicken and the egg, it is tough to distinguish which came first, my love of photography, or my obsession with optics.
As a young kid, I would go to the local sunglasses stores and grab all the promo literature they had and take it home to read, sometimes even putting it in my backpack so I could look at it during lunch recess. Saying I was a sunglass nerd is only wrong in that it is past-tense -- I am still a sunglass nerd. I can still remember saving for months of my earnings from mowing people’s yards and delivering the penny saver papers so that I could buy my very first pair of Oakleys (original Mumbos with a sweep lens in smoke). I had extra silk cases for them and would take them apart and clean them almost daily. It is not an exaggeration to say the routines I use to clean my cameras and lenses started with how I cleaned sunglasses when I was 10.
Maui Jim sunglasses worn by Nick Koester
As time went on, I naturally gravitated to working at a sunglasses shop in the mall when I was in high school. It was a job I loved as I worked at a store in the quiet section of the sprawling facility. I would clean sunglasses all day and try them on, all while getting paid. It should be noted that the money I earned from that job went directly towards buying my first camera, a Canon A2E. When I graduated high school and went to college, I left the sunglass world behind me to focus on developing my photography career while also focusing on my studies. However, when success started to pick up with photography, I often would pay a visit to the local sunglass shops for a reward here and there.
Lately, reminiscing about that time got me thinking: “What type of sunglasses are out there that not only complement photographers, but might even benefit their photography?”
Vuarnet sunglasses worn by yours truly
There are some photographers that are probably asking themselves, “how could some glass help my photography?” and there are others that are on the same wavelength as me. The art we create through the camera lens doesn’t stop when we go out without the camera. In many ways the images I have created only exist because of experiences and scenes that I have witnessed while on vacation, or walking to the store, or being stuck in traffic. I am talking about the mental background plates that show you a color palette or sunlight forming a mountain in a certain way or clarity in a cloud formation in the sky. These are all images that only exist with the right lens – on your sunglasses.
As I started compiling the reasons I gravitate towards some sunglasses during specific photoshoots, while wearing other pairs on different sets, the aspect that stood out the most to me was the lenses. Some pairs featured polycarbonate lenses, while others featured actual glass lenses. Both have their pros and cons, but for clarity and color reference, glass lenses have always been my go-to. I figured it would be best to talk about a couple of sunglasses that still utilize glass lenses, as they are essential to me when out at the train tracks studying the light.
Revo sunglasses worn by Nick Koester
The first pair that I checked out are Watsons by the sunglass maker Revo. My passion for Revo’s started in the sunglass shop I worked at as a teenager. They made incredibly well put together sunglasses with heavy glass lenses that had a distinct reflection on them. The background behind them is one that I enjoy the most, as they are a direct result of NASA developing windows for the satellites. For a science and space junky like myself, there is a certain amount of pride in the idea that the technology that went into discovering and photographing galaxies can be worn on someone’s face. I still have and wear a pair of Revo Cobras from the 1990s on a regular basis as they feel like I am looking through a warming filter.
Silhouette sunglasses worn by Nick Koester
What I enjoy out of the new Revo Watsons with the Revo Blue lens is the control of the blue light on top of the polarization. There is a clarity from them that helps prep my vision for one of my train shots as the haze from draw distance goes away and helps me focus more on the colors at hand that I can then adjust during the RAW file development to match. In many ways, wearing specific sunglasses while out creating photos can have an impact on the final images.
The second pair of sunglasses that I have been wearing a lot lately are Vuarnet Edge 1613s. These are sunglasses that captivated me for a number of different reasons, not the least of which is the passion that goes into them. Each pair of sunglasses can take up to 14 days to make and are created by a single person. With their manufacturing headquarters in France, there are some that take on a very pronounce European design and color palette.
Maui Jim sunglasses worn by Joanie Simon
The ones I chose, though, are matte black, for two reasons. The first is that I wear different sunglasses with different outfits, and having a black pair is essential, and the second reason… is because these are the sunglasses that Daniel Craig wears. Yeah, I will admit to thinking quite highly of him, as he is my favorite Bond of all time, and having seen him wear these glasses, there is a certain amount of badassery that surrounds them.
From a photographic standpoint, the Vuarnet Edges are extremely helpful while on a location shoot, or even while out scouting in the early morning or around sunset. The way they help is with the body curvature around the outside of the lenses. Think of this pair of sunglasses as having a built-in lens hood that dramatically cuts down flare that would normally sneak in through the gap around your temple. To complement the flair control, they also have glass lenses that make for extreme clarity on set. With the lenses on my specific model not being polarized, it is also possible to look at an LCD without any of the blackout effects getting in the way. One final aspect of this pair that I always notice is that the back of the lenses has an anti-reflective coating as if the physical flare blocking wasn’t enough.
Serengeti sunglasses worn by Joanie Simon
Next, we come to not one, but three pairs of sunglasses all made by Maui Jim. When I started talking with Maui Jim for their input for this story, I realized very quickly the strong relationship between camera optics to sunglasses. Concepts such as neutral density filters came to mind as we discussed their applications of mirror finishes to base layer lenses. We discussed the image characteristics given to a pair of sunglasses that has a neutral grey lens coated with a reflective green mirror, and the idea of looking through this had me excited. When we discussed the pieces that would be fun to mention in the article, it was an interesting blend of style and lens tonality. Instead of landing on one, we decided that three (red, green, and blue) lenses should be looked at.
For red we chose the Kawika, as it is very characteristic of Maui Jim’s heritage style in Hawaii. For green with went with the Shore Break, a smaller framed contemporary pair with crystal frames, and for the blue, we tried the Following Seas, an aviator-inspired two-tone frame pair of sunglasses that has one of the deeper blue mirrors I have ever seen on a pair of sunglasses.
Silhouette sunglasses worn by Nick Koester
What is interesting about Maui Jim sunglasses is how absolutely neutral the world looks through them. Green tree leaves have an absolute greenness to them, while the bark of the tree still maintains a deep brown without any red cast to it. The Maui Green lenses tended to put a bit of a magenta feel in clouds that weren’t warm, as much as contrast building in the white clouds against a blue sky. Where the photo nerd in me digs these glasses is that the vignetting of them takes on not just a tonal density, but a color shift. Looking through the center of the lens may have neutral colors, but the edges of it shift to warmer more gold tones. It is definitely an effect that is worth checking out.
Next, we have a sunglass line that I have been very familiar with since the early 1990s. My Dad, like me, has always been one to look at sunglasses for their optical quality above all and had a pair that I can vividly remember. Even when I was 10 years old, I would ask him if I could borrow his Serengeti’s to look around. While their optical quality hasn’t changed, Serengeti’s designs and frames have become more modern and fashionable. This means that the world around can look great, while you look great as well.
For this story, I tried the new Arlie crystal frames with a polarized blue lens. The first thing you will notice if you set the Serengeti’s next to all the other frames is how much more light transmission they produce. What is even more interesting is this is all done through glass lenses that are polarized. The hue of the lens is a grayish-green (even if the mirror is blue), and they are wonderful to wear even after sunset as they make the world around sensational. The Serengeti’s are sunglasses that would go well with someone trying to shoot at dusk with a DSLR as the light transmission doesn’t hinder the brightness of a viewfinder. I think my next pair will be brown lenses though, for the nostalgia of wearing my Father’s sunglasses as a kid means a lot to me.
Maui Jim sunglasses worn by Joanie Simon
The final brand I want to talk about is a bit different than all the other pairs in this story, for they feature polycarbonate lenses, rather than glass. The brand is Silhouette, and they have been based out of Linz, Austria since 1964. Their frames are the lightest I have ever worn (especially the Cobenzl), and often after having them on for a little bit of time, I have to remind myself that I have sunglasses on. For advertising photographers, there are few glasses as stylish and unique as them, and their feel and look of complete refinement is something to behold.
Silhouette sent out two pairs to check out, and to say they are different from each other is to say that 300mm and 16mm lenses have a “different” look. The first pair that I tried on were the Cobenzl's (as previously mentioned). While the lens is not glass, Silhouette have taken a different route that caters to photographers. They have focused (no pun intended) on minimizing (or eliminating) distortion in their lenses. As we all know, how curved elements can sharpen some areas while blurring other areas slightly, this is not the case with Silhouette sunglasses as they are all built together for perfection. The second Silhouette pair is the most out-there of the lot: the Futuras. They are a design that has been with Silhouette since the 70s, and vintage pairs of them can go for many thousands of dollars. They are definitely a pair of sunglasses that take a bold personality to rock, but damn do they get attention.
As you can probably tell by now, I am a complete geek for sunglasses and probably spent more time on this article than any other before it. I was very fortunate to speak to all the companies that I wanted to feature and can’t say thank you enough to everyone for their time. Some calls were literally hours talking about the sunglasses industry, how special it is and how important it is to invest wisely into protecting your eyes as they are your career.
_About the author : Blair Bunting is an advertising photographer based in Phoenix, Arizona. You can see more of his work on his website, blog, Facebook, and Instagram. This story was also published here. _
#editorial #opinion #products #blairbunting #eyewear #oped #polarized #sunglasses
How Watering a Grill Helped Me Shoot a TV Show Campaign
Lighting as a thought process is fundamentally easy to apply to schemata. Water is not. Sure there are the physics that govern the drops via gravity and pull them back to Earth properly, but the abstract way that this is done is a logistical nightmare when combined with good ole electrons. Sure water makes for dynamic imagery when lit well, but what doesn’t get seen is the grey hair that the photographer grows as a result of the set.
When the call came from Discovery to shoot the ad campaign for their show River Monsters, I was thrilled. The concept was strong and the comps that we were to key off made visualizing the final image easy. However, creative potential and potentially dangerous walked hand in hand on this campaign. The idea was to have the show’s host Jeremy Wade wrestling a giant fish in the shallow waters near South Beach, Florida. Now by giant, I mean the kind fish that hangs out with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man on the weekends… probably having a glass of wine with its flippers and talking about the delicacies of krill. Where things get complicated is that we wanted to have Jeremy and mega fish in the water thrashing around…. lit. Obviously, we didn’t want a bathtub with a toaster situation, so safety would come first, creativity second, after all electrocuting an actor is not a good way to land another job (the industry tends to look down on these sort of things).
Knowing that this set would be determined by the quality and work ethic of the people on it, I flew assistants in that I had worked with on previous shoots. We approached the lighting situation with Photoflex Tritons, for their safety, weight, and flash duration (we would be freezing splashing water). We had a scout look for beaches with long gradations to the shore line and went to multiple locals just to walk into the water to his waste level. Background would not be important, as we would fade to black behind the subject. For cameras, I brought both the Nikon D3x and D3s to back it up. Never on a shoot had I expected to destroy a camera more than this, so redundancy would play key to making sure I came home with the shot, even if the camera was a paperweight.
While planning lighting on a napkin is a fun practice as a thought experiment, it really it tough to account for the dynamics that water brings into a shot, both for drama, and for lighting. Essentially water turns every light on set into a specular highlight factory, where reflections abound when it is heavily placed behind the subject. While I have shot a number of times with large water elements (like on the Deadliest Catch). The River Monsters photoshoot was a bit different because the shot would be partially submerged in the water and I needed to have the angle on the kickers nailed perfectly for the image to pop. In order to prepare myself for this, I devised a plan to practice the set while in Arizona, so there would be no surprises on set. To do this, I went over to my assistant’s house at over the span of a couple of nights. He has a black hibachi grill in a very open backyard that we pretended was the fish from the photo. I would set up lights over and over again, and he would stand there with a garden hose, watering the grill so that we could measure the angle we needed for the water to be its most dynamic. While it made for a lot of mud, it also taught me that the lighting ratio for water is significantly different than one would shoot in the studio-based off the key light’s power. With a bare head light behind a splash, you are essentially not losing any power.
After three nights of practice, We had settled on a lighting schemata that played up the drama, yet didn’t overwhelm the frame. We would have Jeremy lit by a large octabox and filled by a small strip with a white bounce on top of it. From there, the sides would each have a light with a medius strip dialed very low to give the image depth. Finally we would blend a pair of lights behind him with a standard reflector for one and a small octabox to soften up the highlights.
With lighting, safety and concept behind us, it was up to Jeremy to make the action, and he did it masterfully. Often he would bring advice and reality to the table that we could not have thought of in our wildest dreams… mostly because I have yet to catch a 350 lbs. grouper, and also because I don’t fish. However, one comment amongst all the others stood out to me… All of us (7 people, 1 fish) were waist deep in the water at night in the Florida ocean and Jeremy looked up at me and said, “you know, these are perfect conditions for a Bull Shark….” to which I replied, “haha, and when’s the last time you caught a Bull Shark?!?!”…. he replied, “I caught one here….. last night”. At that point, without any direction from me, the entire set moved about 10 feet closer to shore.
We shot for only a couple hours, not due to a time crunch, but because Jeremy, the creative director, and rest of the crew worked so well together that in two hours we had a solid 30 images that would work for the ad. Since we were in the ocean, laptop previewing would be impossible, but seeing the shots out of the back of the D3x, the CD was able to see that we had the shot directly out of the camera. Although this image was not the final one chosen because of the main subject’s address to the fish, it shows the strength of a RAW file, and gives an idea to the situation around us:
I wish I could take 100% credit for this shoot, but, as in every shot, it is the quality of the people around you that make the image. So, Jeremy, Mike, Linas, Bryan, Matt, Grant, Paul and Lisa, here is your shot and thank you.
_About the author : Blair Bunting is an advertising photographer based in Phoenix, Arizona. You can see more of his work on his website, blog, Facebook, and Instagram. This story was also published here. _
#editorial #opinion #advertising #blairbunting #discoverychannel #jeremywade #lighting #miami #nikon #rivermonsters
The One That Nearly Got Us: Creating in Fear of an Oncoming Wildfire
It was a quiet evening with a brilliant red sunset visible through the tall pines of Flagstaff, Arizona. I was sitting with my neighbor in my front yard, each of us enjoying an Old Fashioned and toasting to another hot summer day. As the sun passed below the horizon line, and night set in, we noticed some smoke to the south that had more form and definition than what we were used to. I brushed it off as another controlled burn and retired to my house for the evening. After getting my daughter to bed, I took to washing the dishes, including the glass I had just had my cocktail from. To my surprise, there were ashes in it, a sign of things to come.
The next day I was doing a preproduction Zoom call with a client when my phone starting vibrating like crazy. I had a glance at it, only to see an emergency alert instructing me to “begin preparing for evacuation.” The smoke from the previous night was not a controlled burn, but rather a wildfire headed towards our house. I promptly excused myself from my own preproduction meeting to the well wishes of my client and proceeded to walk upstairs. My wife was writing on a chalkboard on the kitchen wall a list of things that must not be forgotten.
The 2019 Museum Fire in Flagstaff, AZ.
Having been around a wildfire a few years before, we had gone through the mental exercises of “what would we take.” However, we were never in harm's way, and I even found it as an opportunity to take some pictures. The same could not be said about this time. To see if I should be genuinely concerned about the situation at hand, I texted a friend that is a local firefighter with my address and a simple note that said “what is the reality for my neighborhood,” only to receive a two-word response:
“Not good”
This dire predicament was reinforced only minutes later when I stepped outside to start packing one of the cars, and the air burned. The brush and trees that the wildfire was burning through produced an oil in the air that felt like a sunburn on your skin within only a couple of minutes of exposure. Add to this that the ash, that was in my prior night’s cocktail glass, was now the size of quarters and looked as though it were snowing in the middle of summer.
I was scared, genuinely scared. As with many of my high-stress photoshoots, I compartmentalized the worry away and focused on what evacuating my family looked like. I also made myself a promise that I would go out and photograph the fire once we were all safe. It was a way of keeping my mind positive and looking forward to something I enjoyed, rather than locking up from the fear.
From family heirlooms to important documents, RAW files to personal servers, one by one they were loaded into the cars. I made the decision to backup my computers to hard drives with the intention to leave the computers to burn. My reasoning was that hard drives take up less space in the car, and at this point, space was everything. The only cameras that I packed were ones with sentimental value, rather than work utility. I viewed the situation as one where gear can be replaced, but passing down my first camera to my daughter is more important than any price tag one could put on that camera.
A couple of hours into the crisis, my wife and I had loaded all the things on her list into the cars. We were ready for the evacuation order, and the designated route that we were supposed to take to leave town. In a funny bit of ironic timing, this was also the day that Canon had set up a video call with me to invite me to become an Explorer of Light. I actually did the call outside.
“Hey guys, I am very honored and will provide you an address for the contract once I know where I will be living in a week,” I said on the call
Yes, it was a surreal day.
Each hour we would look at the news updates, and they seemed to grow bleaker and bleaker. With so many wildfires burning this summer, the hotshot teams and slurry bombers needed to suppress the fires were spread thin. It would be days until they could make it to the fire that was threatening our house. However, I still kept that hope of photographing the fire and even started to go through mental exercises of how I would photograph it once we were safe. I wanted to not only show the situation but tell the story. My daughter is still at an age where she probably will not remember this event, so I felt I owed it to her to capture an image for her to look at when she is older.
Our town (Flagstaff) has always been a train town, with the transcontinental railroad running through it since 1882. While waiting for status updates from the fire department, I would look at Apple Maps (which at this point was now displaying the fire) and see where angles existed to photograph a train with the fire in the background. I was mentally ready, all I needed was for my house to be saved, good light… and a train.
Each hour we would look at the news updates, and they seemed to grow bleaker and bleaker. With so many wildfires burning this summer, the hotshot teams and slurry bombers needed to suppress the fires were spread thin. It would be days until they could make it to the fire that was threatening our house. However, I still kept that hope of photographing the fire and even started to go through mental exercises of how I would photograph it once we were safe. I wanted to not only show the situation but tell the story. My daughter is still at an age where she probably will not remember this event, so I felt I owed it to her to capture an image for her to look at when she is older.
Our town (Flagstaff) has always been a train town, with the transcontinental railroad running through it since 1882. While waiting for status updates from the fire department, I would look at Apple Maps (which at this point was now displaying the fire) and see where angles existed to photograph a train with the fire in the background. I was mentally ready, all I needed was for my house to be saved, good light… and a train.
As fate would have it, one week into the nightmare, we got the news that the Type 1 firefighters (also known as hotshots) were arriving, and that the airplanes would be dropping fire retardant around our area. While the smoke actually got worse for a couple days, the safety that we had been hoping for had now arrived. In a bit of symmetry, I had a cocktail with my neighbor to celebrate our houses being saved, but had to do so inside as it is not fun to have an Old Fashioned while one’s eyes and lungs are burning from the air, no matter what bourbon you choose to make it with.
The next day I set out to photograph the shot that had existed in my mind. However, the weather was not in my favor, as winds blew towards the tracks. Even with an N95 mask, I was not able to be at the location long enough for a train to pass by with good light. This same situation happened the next three days, two of which I drove out the location, and the other I chose not to leave the house. On the fifth day, I received a text from the firefighter that I had spoken to the week prior. He said that they had massive burn operations going on that day, and that there was a chance these burns would result in a pyrocumulonimbus cloud.
At this point, you are probably saying, “what the hell is a pyrocumulonimbus cloud?” No worries, as I hadn’t a clue what they were or that they even existed (and probably slept better not knowing this).
A pyrocumulonimbus cloud is when a large fire creates so much heat that the resulting smoke cloud makes its own weather system… complete with lighting and all. Scary right?
With a stroke of good luck, the fire and its resulting weather system deadened the wind enough for me to go to the location long enough to wait for a train. I had practiced how I would photograph the train, down to swinging my mask around the back of my neck, so my camera movement was level. Finally, the train that I had waited a week for arrived, and I shot three images as it sped by. While I would normally have a quick look to see what existed in the camera, I immediately shut the camera off and walked to the car. I was confident I had the shot, and with my eyes burning, figured it would be best to call it a day.
This is the image:
A freight train pass in front a pyrocumulonimbus cloud from the Rafael Fire in Northern Arizona | Photographed by Advertising Photographer Blair Bunting.
It wasn’t long after seeing this photograph at home that I began to think back to the phone call I had with Canon the week prior. Before having to wrap it up, we discussed how this sponsorship could work, and the access to benefits I would have as an ambassador to their company. From the beginning, I have wanted my role there to benefit others more than myself, and I felt this chaotic situation was an opportunity. I called Canon and told them that my house had been saved, and that I created an image of the fire that nearly took it. I asked if they (Canon) could have someone in their printer division make prints that I could give out to some of the fire stations that were responsible for fighting the fire around us. We decided on ten prints, eight for the fire teams, one for the mayor of the town, and one for my wall.
This was until last week.
I received word that a kind lady, a good friend to many in the photography industry, is going through a difficult health situation. Her name is Kara Leach, and while I have never met her, those I know close to her talk about how incredible a human being she is. The photo community is family to me. It was no surprise when I saw friends and fellow ambassadors donating prints to help pay for Kara’s medical treatment. After all, we are brothers and sisters no matter the gear we use, or what we photograph. It is for this reason that I have decided to take my print from those that Canon made and donate it to Kara. If you would like to go purchase it, you can follow the link here. Also, check out some of the other great images that photographers are offering to help one of our own.
_About the author : Blair Bunting is an advertising photographer based in Phoenix, Arizona. You can see more of his work on his website, blog, Facebook, and Instagram. This story was also published here. _
#editorial #longform #arizona #arizonawildfire #blairbunting #canon #fire #pyrocumulonimbus #trainphotography #trains #wildfire
The 1934 Chrysler Photo Shoot That Brought Us Out of 2020
It wasn’t that the phone hadn’t rung for an entire year, it was that the shoots were always too risky; my urge to be on set was always overruled by my commitment to ensure that making art did not lead to someone contracting COVID.
Yet once the vaccine began to make things safer, I knew that it would only be a matter of time before I was behind the camera once more, and with that I wanted it to be an automotive photo shoot. In a way, it was like dipping your foot in to test the waters before taking a plunge by putting a celebrity or athlete in front of the camera.
Little did I know that my first job back would have me photographing a 1934 Chrysler Airflow; a car that finds its place in the hearts of the super eclectic. Lucky for me, one of those eclectic few happened to be none other than Jay Leno. This actually presented the right set of variables that would just so happen to work in my favor. First, it was in Burbank, so a short -- albeit miserable -- flight was all that I had to take to get to the location. Second, I have worked for this particular client for nearly 15 years. This made producing the shoot without a client on set (as they weren’t vaccinated yet) entirely feasible for we knew each other’s creative approach quite well.
In the weeks leading up to the shoot, I researched the car as much as I could. However, when dealing with a car as rare as this one, the best information available was actually the YouTube video that Jay had previously made with it. In reviewing his footage, it was obvious that the Airflow’s curves and lines were very appropriate to the period it was created in, making it a rather difficult car to light. Modern cars have sharper creases and folds in the metal that take in lighting in a crisp way that is forgiving to the photographer. Unfortunately, a certain variety of older cars like the Airflow are more rounded due to the machines that were available to the manufacturers at the time. This changes the approach of the photoshoot to higher and larger diffused sources that are complemented by narrow background lights to define the car’s form. This updated approach would end up being the photoshoot I needed to get back in the groove of producing campaigns again, as the challenge of lighting such a unique car proved both exciting and nerve-wracking.
To add fuel to the fire, this would also be the first time that I would be shooting with the Nikon Z 7II. Not only did I need to learn the camera, but with it arriving the night before my flight, I found myself setting it up on the 45-minute plane ride over. It turns out that having worked with so many Nikon bodies before, it was a rather seamless transition to their newest mirrorless system. The leap of faith for me came down to the glass. I am a fiend for shooting 24-70mm lenses, so much so that I packed the f/2.8 S and f/4 for this one. However, in a challenge from the good folks at Nikon, I took both the 14-24mm f/2.8 S and 70-200mm f/2.8 S lenses with me to broaden the options for compression. Having never seen the car in person, this seemed like some additional insurance just in case I needed to present additional options to the client. It turns out that this ended up being a great choice, I was able to utilize all three 2.8 lenses in the piece. The images selected by the client also included options from all three, making this the first series that I’ve done with multiple lenses in many years.
One thing I do have to mention is that during pre-light the day before the shoot, I took a very short Uber to Jay Leno’s Garage as it is just minutes away from Burbank Airport. In the collector car world, Jay’s Garage and the remarkable cars it houses is just as famous as Jay himself. With over 150 cars and 175 bikes, the staggering collection takes a decent amount of time just to walk through.
When arriving at the garage, I was met by the man that manages the day-to-day operations for Jay. Over the next hour, he toured me around every room, each packed to the brim with jaw-dropping cars, motorcycles, and even a full-size steam engine. After we had seen the last car, we discussed the next day’s photo shoot and what time I would be showing up. At that point, I requested an Uber to take me to the hotel so that I could rest up for the long day ahead.
No sooner than I had pressed the “request” button on the app, Jay Leno himself walked up. He asked how I was and what I thought about the collection. To be honest, I was a bit caught off guard by how much he cared to hear my thoughts. I told him that I appreciated the collection, not for any marque or car that was in it, but for the glimpse inside the mind of the man that had collected it.
His response still floors me to this day. He appreciated my view so much that he then asked if he could personally give me a tour. Never have I been so happy to pay an Uber cancellation fee! Over the next few hours, Jay showed me around in what can only be the most hilarious car-related experience I have ever had. I was in tears multiple times by the jokes he was cracking while explaining the ins and outs of individual cars and motorcycles. The man is as brutally funny as he is knowledgeable about automobiles. To a level that is almost Rain Man-esque, he can tell you every nut, bolt, and spec for each of his 150-plus cars.
In sharp contrast, I can barely tell you where windshield wiper fluid goes on my car, so it was quite an overwhelming experience. The passion that Jay has for the cars is one completely grounded in humility about owning them. Not once did he brag about owning a car, but instead was always grateful to have them, and I could tell this was genuine. For a celebrity of his level to be so removed from any ego renewed my faith in humanity.
This photo shoot returned me to the career I love in an environment that restored my confidence in safely returning to set. I feel immediately back at the top of my craft and ready for the next photoshoot and welcome any challenges that may arise.
Little did I know I would return to Jay Leno’s garage two weeks later…
_About the author : Blair Bunting is an advertising photographer based in Phoenix, Arizona. You can see more of his work on his website, blog, Facebook, and Instagram. This story was also published here. _
#editorial #equipment #2020 #2021 #automotive #automotivephotography #automotivephotoshoot #bam #blairandmike #blairbunting #covid19 #covid19experience #jayleno
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