The Shoot, The Vandal, and the Shot
The Shoot:
I told a co-worker of mine that I wanted to set up a portrait session with her. She's fair skinned, always wears black, has multiple tatoos and piercings, but has a laid-back, almost bubbly sense of humor; the combination of her pleasant personality coupled withher darkaurahas always fascinated me. I decided to shoot her against an abandoned warehouse decorated with "street art" (or graffiti in layman's terms).I showed up about 15 minutes early to set up some lighting equipment before Scarlett was to arrive. I arranged my monolights in a circle in a section of the front parking lot of an apparently abandoned building. When Scarlett and her fiance arrived, I walked over to greet them. We talked for a couple of minutes, then something unimaginable happened...
The Vandal:
Some idiot pulls off the road, uses the parking lot to do a U-turn, and (seemingly on purpose) runs over one of my lightstands in the process. After my lightstand hit the ground, he was smart enough to slam on the gas and get the hell out of dodge before I could reach the scene which was about25 feet away. So, I had the wonderful experience of watching my most expensive and beloved monolight (my White Lightning x2400), CSRB+ receiver,and relatively new Ebay beauty dish hit the ground after the lightstand collapsed. Let me tell you--not a good feeling. The good news is that the only piece of equipment that was irreparably damaged was the lightstand itself. The monolight fell onto a part of the parking lot that was missing pavement-- it fell into a soft patch of mud after the beauty dish took the brunt of the fall.The light was unharmed (aside from a few scratches). I was able to bend the beauty dish back into a reasonable shape (and we still used it on the shoot). Maher, my wonderful assistant, held the damaged stand throughout the entire shoot.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-h...2019.43.46.jpg
The Shot:
The evening wasn't completely ruined--we put the incident behind us, kept our eyes peeled for any more suspicious activity, and did what we came to do.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2428/...15e18072_z.jpg
I ordered a new light stand this morning. And life goes on...
Re: The Shoot, The Vandal, and the Shot
I read about the incident on your Flickr page. My condolences, and also congrats on a great shoot nevertheless!
Out of curiousity, since it was a parking lot, were there security cameras? If so, a police report might result in some consequences for the vandal (even though it was just property damage, when caused by a vehicle that probably escalates the severity).
--John
Re: The Shoot, The Vandal, and the Shot
Nice eyes, nice shot, curse those jealous strobists.
Re: The Shoot, The Vandal, and the Shot
Beautiful shot, Sean of a beautiful girl! I am sorry to hear you had to go thru what you did to get the shot though!
People make choices everyday on what type of person they want to be. It just boggles my mind that someone would choose to be this type of human being and have so little regard for another persons property! I know people do alot worse but even stuff like this just disgusts me! Just driving away wouldn
Re: The Shoot, The Vandal, and the Shot
Quote:
Originally Posted by neuroanatomist
Out of curiousity, since it was a parking lot, were there security cameras? If so, a police report might result in some consequences for the vandal (even though it was just property damage, when caused by a vehicle that probably escalates the severity).
From what I can tell, it's an abandoned building. The graffiti has been there for years, I think. So, no security cameras...
Re: The Shoot, The Vandal, and the Shot
What a tool. At least it was only the light stand that was damages, could have been much worse.
Re: The Shoot, The Vandal, and the Shot
Quote:
Originally Posted by btaylor
What a tool. At least it was only the light stand that was damages, could have been much worse.
Very true. The strobe, CSRB+, beauty dish, and flash tube could have all been damaged beyond repair. I was quite fortunate. I still wish I had been close enough to see his tags as he sped off...
Re: The Shoot, The Vandal, and the Shot
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sean Setters
Some idiot pulls off the road, uses the parking lot to do a U-turn, and (seemingly on purpose) runs over one of my lightstands in the process. After my lightstand hit the ground, he was smart enough to slam on the gas and get the hell out of dodge before I could reach the scene
Sorry. That was me and my friend. I heard about your photo shoot and wanted to come watch you work. But as soon as I got there, I remembered that the car I was driving was stolen (I'm pretty good with a Slim Jim), and I realized that you probably wouldn't appreciate the extra blue/red lights and background distraction if the police caught up with me there. Not to mention the muzzle flashes. So that's when I did a U-Turn and noticed that your WL x2400 monolight didn't seem to be working. I was going to pull up next to it and check the settings for you, but I knew it probably just needed a little bump to get it going again, so I ran it over (plus, I was drunk). I think that fixed it, because I could see you running towards me and shouting your thanks. Then the thought occurred to me that you might think I had bad breath, due to the odor from the body in the trunk, so I burned rubber getting out of there.
Maybe next time [:)]
Re: The Shoot, The Vandal, and the Shot
See there's two sides to every story.
I thought that whole "vandal" thing was a little over the top. Are you OK Daniel?
I was little suspicious of your story, specially when you started out with "me and my friend," you were by yourself weren't you?
Heh heh.[:D]
Re: The Shoot, The Vandal, and the Shot
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve U
I was little suspicious of your story, specially when you started out with "me and my friend," you were by yourself weren't you?
I don't know....does a life sized cardboard cut out made from a self portrait count as a passenger? I mean, if the cut out was in the front passenger seat, then he'd still technically be "by himself," I suppose...
Re: The Shoot, The Vandal, and the Shot
This whole sequence of posts has me LMAO...............
Great picture by the way, love the eyes.......
Re: The Shoot, The Vandal, and the Shot
If those eyes are her natural color
Re: The Shoot, The Vandal, and the Shot
Quote:
Originally Posted by Raid
If those eyes are her natural color… I know many women who would kill for them… simply stunning.
She's wearing colored contact lenses. To see, click on the picture. On the next page, right-click and choose "Original." In the full resolution version of the picture, you can tell exactly where the colored part of the contact lenses stop and her real eye color begins.
