A Thousand Miles Away

While trudging down Michigan Ave. in downtown Chicago last November, after photographing Barack Obama's historic presidential election win and victory celebration in Grant Park, I was already kicking around the possibility of attending and photographing the inauguration in Washington, D.C., in January. With a family member who lives a mile from The Mall, finding a place to stay wasn't an issue, and the solo drive to D.C. from Chicago was something I would have been up for. Though I wouldn't have been credentialed, my plan in D.C. would have played out much like it did on election night in Chicago. I'd concentrate on the people who were there celebrating, and the emotions they'd display as history was made.

Unfortunately for me (fortunately for my bank account), work on the video editing side kept me here in East Chicago for Inauguration Day. I was able to sneak away from that project for a few hours, however, and cover the inauguration with my still cameras for The Post-Tribune. I was assigned a watch party for high schoolers at West Side Theatre in Gary, Indiana. This assignment opened up the doors for some creativity, since I'm also employed at the theater as the house lighting designer.

I text messaged a crew member at the theater the night before and got confirmation that the inauguration would be displayed on the theater's movie screen in front of at least 500 kids. I knew immediately that I'd want to shoot a photo of the large audience with Obama on the screen before them. I knew this would be tricky because, in order for the video projector to be effective, the house lights in the auditorium would be very dim. I needed a way to light the audience and expose for the video image on the screen simultaneously.

A strobe would be my best option for achieving this exposure, and I'd want to mount it directly overhead to accent the kids' hair and shoulders as they viewed the screen. The theater has three light coves over the audience which are accessed via catwalk, and from the center cove, I had a clean angle straight down from which I could mount a strobe. There are several spot lights (ETC 750w Source 4 36° units) at West Side which are focused as audience lights for video shoots that I could have used instead of the strobe, but I was worried that these lights wouldn't be bright enough to shoot with and be able to freeze the video image on the screen at the same time.

Arriving two hours early, I used a Bogen Variable Friction Magic Arm with a Superclamp to mount my Canon 550EX flash pointing straight down from the theater's center light cove, accessed via catwalk. The 550EX was triggered with a Paramount 1/8th inch to shoe mount cord. The shoe mount has a 1/4" thread on the bottom, allowing it to be mounted with the flash to the magic arm. The flash was triggered with Pocket Wizard Plus units. The 550EX head was set manually to half power (1/2), and left on the widest zoom setting.

My first test shot from the audience revealed a few problems. First and foremost, the light from the flash was spilling onto the stage and screen. Halfway up the screen, stage curtains were creating a large shadow. Finally, I noticed the color temperature of the projector lamp was much lower than the daylight setting on my camera's white balance, resulting in a very green image. Time to make some adjustments...

I headed to the theater's lighting storage area and grabbed a small piece of Blackwrap, which is essentially thick, black aluminum foil (it also goes by the name Cinefoil). I took it up the catwalk and, using a small piece of gaff tape, attached the Blackwrap to the front of the flash head, effectively creating a "barn door" which cut the light completely off the stage and screen. I also set my camera's white balance to Kelvin, and fooled with some color temperatures until I found a happy medium between the blueish flash color and the greenish projector lamp (it ended up being 3800K).

Even though I knew this would look terrible, I did another test-shot of student crew member Darnell just to see how the flash would look on audience member's faces. Of course, the straight-up toplight left Darnell's face completely in shadow. But, this test shot let me know for sure that using the flash from this angle wasn't an option once the kids got in there. Owning only one flash, and not wanting to touch my rigging above people's heads while they occupied the seats below me (to possibly retrieve my flash after I got my shot and continue using it down below), I'd have to shoot the screening front-on with available light.

Once again, (already pictured at the top of this entry) the final image during Obama's speech using the overhead flash. At first I wasn't too hot on English teacher Odis Richardson standing in the middle of the aisle, but the more I worked the frame, the more I started to like the fact that he was there. The newspaper ended up running this photo inside in black and white, cropped to a vertical. Sigh. Hey, I shoot for myself first and foremost, and I was very happy with this image regardless of what the paper did with it.

Gary West Side High School students including Darren Hopkins (foreground, right), 16, give a standing ovation moments after Barack Obama was sworn in as president of the United States. Of course my photo editor would have been very disappointed had I only sent one image of the backs of people's heads from the assignment, so I had to be mindful of capturing faces and emotions as well. Shooting available light on my Canon 1D MarkII's in the dark theater was a challenge. This image was shot at 3200ISO 1/50th @ f2.8. I usually only use 3200ISO on my MarkII's in dire situations, because the resulting noise is very agressive. Using Noise Ninja during the toning process helped to eliminate most of it.

I found the adults in the room to be far more emotional than the students, though during the moment when Barack was sworn in (pictured in the above photo), the room went nuts. Here, Gary West Side High School instructor Nicole Harris sits with students. It was interesting how students, despite a few apathetic faces, were following along with the ceremony as if the people on the screen were actually on the stage before them. Whenever the emcee directed the crowd in Washington to stand, so too did the students watching in Gary.

I shot a few images of people who hung around watching the coverage after most of the other students and teachers left. The few stragglers who couldn't get enough sat transfixed on the screen, silently taking in what they were witnesssing. At left, Gary West Side High School junior Megan Smith, 17, and Gary West Side High School teacher Donnell Smith.

After photographing Mr. Smith and Megan, I put my cameras down and faced the screen, just as Mr. Obama and everyone else in Washington stood for the national anthem. Too often, we as photographers don't get to truly experience the moments we cover (and that might be important to us on a personal level) because we are looking at them through a viewfinder. It's as if we're watching everything on a TV, disconnected - and often - unaffected. Putting my cameras down after my job was done allowed me to connect with the people around me in the theater and really soak in the historic moment, together. It was a very powerful moment indeed, and one that I was glad to have a part of covering, even if the main event was a thousand miles away.

2009 NHL Winter Classic Aerials

During the month of December, the Chicago media hyped the 2009 Winter Classic hockey game (held outdoors at Wrigley Field) to such a degree that one might have suspected that Jesus Christ Our Lord And Saviour was scheduled to make an appearance sometime during the third period. No joke! Every twenty seconds on some TV channel, there'd be a commercial for or relating to the event. Personally, the media hype didn't affect me. For one, I know Jesus has better things to do than book himself for T.V. face time at a hockey game. Secondly, I'm not a hockey fan at ALL. I've shot stills of ice hockey once and roller hockey a few times. Both experiences (save for the moment during the ice hockey game when these two dudes started fighting) left me drowsy and frustrated at the lack of compelling images to be had.

The players wear veritable space suits, complete with helmets that obstruct most of their facial expressions. The teams chase around a tiny puck which, from 50 feet away, shows up on your camera smaller than those blobs of sensor dust you haven't cleaned off in months. The lighting in these local arenas is usually better suited for cold seafood storage than an athletic event. Strobes or not, the darkness still makes it hard to focus (literally) on the action. On top of all that, both the indoor rinks I shot in smelled like a bath towel unwashed for a week, mixed with the smell from the inside of my year-old tennis shoes that I wear daily, times ten.

Needless to say, I'm somewhat of a hockey Scrooge. I think the only hockey images I've ever enjoyed were shot by Sportsshooter member Robert J. Meyer, and that's because Meyer focuses a lot on things that happen off the rink, the "in-betweens", if you will, of the sport. These images actually make you care about the guys wearing the space suits and firefighter air masks out on the ice.

One of the only memorable moments from my first and only time shooting ice hockey in Dyer, Ind., on April 5, 2008. Please murder me slowly.

Two days before the Winter Classic, on the morning of my 27th birthday, the little light bulb that goes off in my mind when I have an idea glowed a little brighter than usual. I realized that the story with the Winter Classic wasn't the hockey game at all, but rather, the fact that it was the first hockey game to be held at Wrigley Field in the stadium's history. Because I usually excel at features shots at major sporting events, I decided to call a few of the outlets I've shot for in the past and see if I could get a credential to the game for just this purpose. Basically, I was told that everybody and they mamma wanted to shoot the game, and that the already scarce credentials were gone.

The idea light bulb flickered just as I felt a sharp pain in my backside. Something was poking me from my office chair! What's this? Ahh yes! It was all the Christmas and birthday money I'd been sitting on! And, with that, the idea light bulb lit up once again. WIth everybody and they mamma shooting on the ground, where's the one place I could get a unique shot without a credential? You guessed it, from the air! I decided a photo flight would be a wise investment, since I'd own images from a historic Chicago event from a unique angle.

I immediately called Sun Aero Helicopters, the same company I flew with when I shot my September 2008 Northwest Indiana flood aerials. I requested a Robinson R22 once again, which is the cheapest helicopter available at $285 per hour. The man on the phone quickly tried to pitch a $800+ per hour Jet Ranger helicopter to me, because the R22 is unheated and would be very uncomfortable during the 20 minute flight up to Wrigley with the door removed. I informed the clerk that I was crazy, and that I didn't mind braving the cold for the twenty minute flight from Lansing, Ill., to Wrigleyville.

Flying in a helicopter where the doors cannot be removed, or where the windows cannot slide open, is 100% unacceptable for a photo flight, in my opinion. The windows in most aircraft, like cars, have a very slight color cast to them which will greatly affect the color in your images. And, if you plan on shooting with any long glass, the aircraft windows will actually distort the sharpness of your images, much like looking at fish in an aquarium.

Sun Aero's Jet Ranger, along with pilot Rick Bruner. Note how the windows of the helicopter actually appear to be very light blue. Imagine having to shoot photos through these! I sat in the back seat on this side of the ship, and shot through the vent window which slid open.

As my luck would have it, there were no R22 pilots available for New Year's Day. However, Sun Aero made a great counter-offer to me. A previously-scheduled photo flight was headed up to the Winter Classic in the fancy, heated Jet-Ranger, complete with sliding windows. I was offered the extra seat in this ship for the price of the R22 for one hour, since that's all I initially requested. I quickly accepted, and after they made sure it was OK with the other photographer, my time was officially booked.

Fellow photographer Warren near his large, roll-down window opposite from my side of the aircraft. Warren's large window would actually work out to my advantage later in the flight.

I arrived at the airport at 11 a.m. on New Years Day and met Warren, the other photographer who'd be flying and shooting with me, as well as our pilot Rick Bruner. Bruner is retired from many years of police aviation, and now flies for private clients and large events across the country. We headed into the hangar to have a look at the Jet Ranger. Since Warren had booked the flight first, he'd sit in the back seat on the side of the ship that had a large, roll-down window, just like a car. I took the opposite back seat, which had a vent window that slid open just wide enough for me to get my lens and camera body through.

Approaching downtown Chicago over the Dan Ryan Expressway. I was struck with how muted and gray the color pallette is from the air during wintertime in Chicago.

We took off just before noon and headed for downtown Chicago. I shot a lot of stock photos of seemingly average things on the way there. With nearly $5.00 per minute of my personal money flying by, I wasn't about to waste any opportunity to shoot aerial stock for myself. When we made it over downtown, I had around twenty additional minutes to do just this. We had to hold to the South of Wrigley Field to allow an F-18 flyover at the start of the game to clear the area, which took forever (gotta love television). I had a chance to shoot the skyline from many angles, as well as the annual Polar Bear plunge, where crazies take a swim in the cold lake water.

Crazies swim in Lake Michigan at North Avenue Beach in Chicago during the annual Polar Bear Plunge.

Empty boat slips and ice dot the water in Burnham Harbor in Chicago. The delay caused by the F-18 flyover allowed me to shoot some interesting, abstract stuff.

When we were finally OK to enter the airspace over Wrigley, the 20-knot wind gusts we'd been flying in became much more pronounced, with the helicopter twisting and dipping quite a bit. While mildly unnerving, I never felt queazy or ill during the twisty ride, which I'm grateful for since I enjoy aerial photography so much. I should also briefly mention that our ability to fly directly over Wrigley Field while a game was in progress was very unique. Normally, for Major League Baseball games, a temporary flight restriction, or TFR, is put in place, meaning aircraft cannot come within three nautical miles of the stadium without prior (and I mean far, far prior) permission from the venue and Homeland Security. Because this event was sponsored by the NHL, which usually plays indoors, no TFR was in effect.

Directly overhead, sans TFR.

Once over Wrigley, pilot Rick skillfully put the ship in place to allow Warren and myself to accomplish the shots we'd planned out at the FBO before our flight. My shots included an overall of the stadium with the skyline in the background, a direct tight overhead of just the rink itself, as well as any general shots of the stadium and surrounding neighborhood.

I made it a point to juxtapose the familiar features of Wrigley Field, such as the decorative iron work on the lights and the famous scoreboard, with the hockey rink setup whenever I could.

Pilot Rick circled around the stadium in a steep bank, allowing us to shoot straight down out of our open windows. He'd circle a few times on Warren's side, then turn around and circle a few times on my side. Warren's large window worked out well because, when circling on his side, I was able to shoot over his shoulder out of the open window with my 70-200, whereas he couldn't do the same on my side because my open window was much smaller. So, in the end, I really ended up in the best seat in the ship and got to accomplish all the images I had in mind.

This was the main angle I had in mind when I set out on this photo flight, only I was banking on sunlight skirting across the rink as there'd been in previous days during team practices. This would have created very long, abstract shadows all over the place, which would have looked great from this angle. Unfortunately, I haven't mastered weather control yet, so with overcast skies in place, I had to settle for this.

Another overhead angle, this time a bit further away to incorporate the red Wrigley Field sign.

In addition to the stadium features, I tried to fit as much of the crowd in with the rink as I could. Composing this was difficult, since much of the "field" around the rink was composed of dead white space from snow which was created for the event.

Hurry! The pilot says it's time to head back! Think of a different way to compose the same thing you've already shot ten times!

Directly overhead, this time flipped around looking towards "home plate."

After circling Wrigley a few more times, we headed back to Lansing Airport where I immediately filed several images. Hopefully a few publications will be interested in these, but really, sales would be the icing on the cake for what ended up being a very fun self-birthday-present of a day.

A gloomy January Chicago skyline on the way back to Lansing Airport.

Pilot Rick, also a huge Blackhawks fan, really enjoyed this mission.