There is a reason we venture out with a full crew and do our own Friday project shots – besides being fun, its practice for when we’re working a large commercial shoot with multiple indoor and outdoor scenes, models, props, food, weather, client, etc. This shoot was for a set of stock images for our friends up at the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge in Copper Harbor, MI. The majority of the shots on the site were shot by Brockit back in 2005 and still look nice and fresh, but with the lodge being open more in the winter, it was time to add some snowy content for them. After a number of reschedulings for weather and travel, we finally packed the low-rider mercury up with camera gear, food, drinks, manager / shot-list coordinator, two interns, and photographer. A big thanks to the staff at the KML for providing craft service, hospitality, and good setups. A bigger thanks to the models (and crew doubling as models) for the patience with all the scenes. Everyone did great, and we got a ton of content. There are just over 100 ‘highlight’ shots for crew & model enjoyment / amusement here and a few below for fun. Always good to work with Dave & Karyn at The Marketing Department on shoots like this – you guys are professional and fun.

We’re working with some good friends on a media project – gathering visual content for Dave & Karyn at the Marketing Department in Houghton. The studio has been set, spiked, and wired for video while stills will be on-location. Thanks to Todd at Brassard Media for providing the video capture – always good to team with him. Three interviews are under our belt after the first night of setup and light testing, and everyone did great. Todd got back on the blog bandwagon and posted earlier today about the shoot – thanks! Makes me appreciate still shots though, if nothing else for the fact that you don’t have to be quiet during studio shoots. It was odd to not have the studio filled with music and laughing and instead be hiding in the office watching the monitor through a crack in the door. Thanks to our friends who provided great interviews the other night – looking forward to the rest! Thanks for the shots below, Todd. Here is his post.

monitoring the video

view from the interviewee seat

So you probably didn’t realize that there was a radar station located in remote Keweenaw Peninsula. Well there was, and kind of – still is. The 665th Calumet Air Force Station was operational 1950 – 1988. Its support base was K.I. Sawyer AFB. Some early equipment FPS-5; FPS-3/-20/-64; FPS-27; FPS-26A; FPS-6/-90 and later: FPS-27; FPS-26A. FPS-91A; FPS-116 (JSS). Cool stuff if you are into cold-war era defenses and the SAGE network for which this radar station served as a link. If you’re not, check it out – its absolutely fascinating!

In my continual fascination with empty, abandoned, decaying industrial structures, we rounded up the troops for an afternoon shoot at the decommissioned base. Many thanks to the Keweenaw County Sheriff’s Department, and our friends at Pasty.net – both of whom have high interest in keeping the site secure and do so with an array of video cameras, motion sensors, and padlocks. While we planned a couple weeks out, we did not factor the weather. When we pulled up, we had a -27 windchill outside and our staging area in tower was perhaps 20 degrees at best. So the interns kept the models warm with blankets, hats, boots, and tomato soup (thanks, John) photoshoot & costume director Heidi, tour guide JCS and I scoped the floors out with a flashlight and settled on a half dozen locations. Thanks to everyone for helping out, and a thank you to the crazy models whose pale, frozen faces made the shoot that much more dramatic. More shots to come from this set.

*** UPDATED ***

Had to update this post with some more photos from the shoot as a result of an unsolicited email from a very sweet fan (thanks!) Her message is below and new images follow.

Subject: Your Work-WOW
Message Body: I just ”discovered” you from the pastycam website with your photos of the dog race.
You have an incredible talent of capturing the essence of a person!!! Wish we lived closer. My husband and I lived in the Copper Country in 1967 when he was stationed at Calumet Air Force Radar Station. (Which would be a great background for your work. All the buildings are just as we left them. Curtains, even still in place!)
We fell in love with the area and we try to get back when we can.
I will be checking in to your website often.
Thanks!!!

AN/FPS-27 radar

active base

under the radar support structure

director Heidi, intern Emily, guide John, manager Meghan

keeping the models warm

I’m up way too late doing this, but the sound of the rain in February in the Upper Peninsula is freaking me out a bit and I drank way too much tea. So instead of sleeping, I uploaded about a dozen or so images to the main gallery and refreshed some content on the blog as well. Navigation between the gallery and the client area should be easier too. So yes – I’ve added some fresh shots to the wedding, commercial and exhibition galleries – some of you are featured, more to come – going to bed now…

I think I had this on my facebook a while back, but I opened a bottle of champange recently and thought again of this crazy set of shots from Krista Werner’s wedding this fall. I admit that I convinced the groomsman to shake the bottle up a bit, but I didn’t expect it to really make that much of a mess. Actually… a lot of people got dirty and somehow wet with lake water, beer, mud, or champange at Krista’s wedding. One of the more fun ones also – thanks Krista! I just held my finger down on the shutter release as he popped the cork off. Check out his eyes following the cork as the bottle is exploding – watch people’s faces too – just too funny! Thank goodness for 11 frames / second.

Krista’s highlight photos are in the client galleries here, and find the old posting for other clients crazy and beautiful weddings.

We have a few different categories for types of shoots. Among all the commercial, wedding, and portrait work, there is a loose category for project & art shoots. These are done either for individual clients as part of a portfolio, modeling, or commercial project, or as Brockit shoots for promotion, portfolio, or just pure fun; this is an example of the latter. Meghan (now with the more appropriate title of ‘manager’) helped hook us up with Lucy, an old friend of hers in town with aptitude for modeling. Always a fan of location vs. studio we secured a poolside site at a friends beautiful home just south of here and brought:

SLR bodies
video camera & underwater housing
wetsuit
snorkel
pickled eggs
a bag of clothing
model
photographer
assistant
art director
manager

Thanks so much to our hosts who were both generous and supportive of the project and gave us free reign of their place for the afternoon; so nice! Lucy did great and was a natural. The still shots were the goal, but underwater video was too much of an opportunity not to pass up. Thanks to our buddy Todd for the gear for this part, and a thanks for the future editing of the content. Shooting stills in a wetsuit is one thing, but trying for video capture underwater was another. Heidi (director for the shoot) ended up in the water, holding me underwater while Lucy thrashed around, while I tried to capture content. Too much fun… 215 images from the shoot, a few blog-appropriate selections below.