“Project Lawnmover – keywords like, “grass”, “race” and of course “flash”!

Say what ever you like, but when I go all in on a project, I go all in…

Read on to find out just how much…

Slowly but steadily, I’m gaining more and more faith in my abilities as a photographer, I find that what I envision before hand, pretty much turns out the way I want it..
(Did that sound kinda pretentious???)

Not that this particular shoot started out as a fully formed idea, it was more one of those “hey, I can make something out of this with a camera and some lights“…

This summer, my family and I are spending it at home relaxing, fixing up the house a wee bit, but generally just kicking back.

But as anyone with kids will tell ya, you gotta stay busy or they’ll eat you alive in desperation for something to do. I needed a project, something to do, that would be fun, yet allow me to get some time alone without the kids and wife, an excuse to get a little “me time” if you will… (Little did I know that this would end up being a great father/son project after all)

Enter an old rusty banged up yellow and green lawn mower.
One of the projects this summer has been to get our lawn all fixed up and looking good, so we pulled our old trusty reel mower out of the shed and went in to action. Even though it did what it was supposed to, cutting the grass and all that, it was in need of a little TLC.

while clearing out the old bits of grass and sharpening the blade I decided to go that extra mile and make an old boring looking lawn mower, look like a brand spanking new racing machine.

I found some old cans of blue metallic spray-paint, a can of varnish and some primer and set to work.

used my recently purchased 17-35mm "manual focus" Sigma lens for this shot

While adding the blue metallic paint I got the idea to make a photo shoot out of this project

It was during the priming and painting that I got the idea for the shoot.

Usually when I get an idea for a photoshoot I just go for it, right then and there, but seeing as the paint had to dry for 22 hours before I could assemble the mower again and add the finishing touches, (like an abnormal amount of white electrical tape – racing stripes kicks ass and makes for a great image!!!), I had to wait..

In the mean time, after tweeting about the upcoming shoot, wishing for a sunny day, my friend wrote me on Facebook and asked me what was in store… Not wanting to tell him to much I gave him a list of some of the keywords I planned to use… Grass, Race and of course Flash.
Having written this there was no going back.
I had committed my self to the project, and thanks to my mom who promised, that the day would indeed be a beautiful day, I got the weather I was asking for.

Wanting an interesting background (I was inspired by David Hobby and his shoot with Erin Holmes) I found a corner in my backyard where I could set up the shoot. The bench and the foliage gave me the visually intriguing backdrop I was looking for.

Getting some much appreciated help from my son, who I had already planned to make my model, we started setting up the lights.

Having only three lights, I decided on having a “key” (silver reflective umbrella), a “fill” (shoot through – ditto) and using the third as a rim light (no modifier). I would have loved to have a fourth light to act as a rim light, camera right (model left), but I had to make due with what I had.

I shoot this at 1 pm... ambient light was abundant

As I shot this at 1 pm the ambient light was really putting my lights through their paces, but I never felt that they would not be able to do the job.

A Canon 430 EX II into a reflective silver umbrella as the key, camera left – a Cactus KF-36 through a shoot-through umbrella as a fill, camera right – and in the back on the fence another Cactus KF-36 mounted on a spring clamp, all three flashes fired with Cactus V4 triggers.

I used two lenses during the shoot, my beloved Canon 18-55mm EF-s IS lens and my newly purchased Sigma 17-35mm f/2.8-4 EX HSM lens, (manual focus only, since the autofocus had gone haywire on the previous owner… hey it was cheap ).

Worst lens ever…
Why they call it a fast lens with an aperture of f/2.8 is beyond me…

Okay, no arguing, it has an aperture of f/2.8, but the softness of the images at this aperture is second to none… It’s like cell phone camera images… (I could go on and on about the drawbacks of this lens’ IQ at large apertures, but thats the stuff of a new article…)

Stop it down to f/5 – f/13 though, (thats where I live when in flash land), and it’s not too bad.

Dialing in a sync speed of 1/200 of a second at f/13, I managed to get this particular shot,

EXIF: ISO 100 - f/13 - 1/200

As this was a stationary object, the need for autofocus was not really in question, and I gotta say, I really like the colors I get with this lens…

This shot presented me with some problems though. I wanted the handle on the lawn mower to stand up by itself, but thats not possible without a little help. My first option was to buy some fishing line from the local tackle store, the thinest one I could find, but sadly, and I did not know this, fishing line is slightly elastic, so my plan to mount an overhead horizontal string and from there fix another one vertically down to the handle, just didn’t work, the handle on the lawnmower was just too heavy.

Instead, I placed a thin metal rod behind the handle propped against the ground. It showed in the image afterwards, but some PP work afterwards, and it was good to show.

Next up though, I wanted to create more telling stories so I brought in a willing model.
Working with kids can be a joy if you know how to handle them and in this case we were on the exact same page, my son and I. All he wanted in exchange was a single photo for himself…

With a mowing target (his eyes) I opted for the Canon 18-55mm EF-s IS lens for these next series of shots, needing a working autofocus system… For some reason I needed to slow down the shutter 1/3 of a stop to get the background exposure I wanted, so we ended on 1/160 of a second. Why, I really can’t say, slight differences in the lens design maybe.

Don’t really care though, the images turned out the way I wanted ‘em to.

EXIF: ISO 100 - f/10 - 1/160 - the best shot of the day in my opinion.

Wanting to be in the limelight as well, I used the Phottix Plato C6 wireless remote, to trigger the camera, and the Manfrotto 055PROB tripod totally flattened, with the camera attached to the 488RC Ballhead, to get the composition I wanted for this next shot. (I’m a total sucker for these low angle shots.)

EXIF: ISO 100 - f/10 - 1/160 - cheapo haircut

This has been one the most fun project for me in a long while, most of all because I got to work with my son on this one..
He assembled lightstands, mounted flashes, dialed in power settings, even acting as a sandbag at one point.

No arguing, just wanting to do something with his dad… I really love that kid, even though he drives me nuts every once in a while…

At one point he asked me if he could get a photograph for his room…

EXIF... who cares, how cute is that kid!?!?!?!

I challenge anyone to say no to that face …

Thanks kid, I had a hell of a day

Related posts:

1. Fire within – a weird flash portrait tutorial
2. Brix flash workshop – I think it’s a review??
3. Officials in a flash!
4. On assignment with David Hobby – perfect background shot with flash
5. New member of the clan