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

Thanks to all the participants in this year’s Great Bear Chase up in lovely Calumet. Adam was able to, with the help of our Brockit interns Kitty & #4, capture over 2000 images – go team!

While Kitty covered racers in the start/finish section, Adam & #4 rocked out on getting action shots on the main course. All racers & staff are able to download free low-res images from the gallery linked in the post below. A huge thanks to Arnie & his team for allowing us to cover this wonderful Winter event!

If you don’t see your  course shots – don’t fret! Please keep checking the gallery, as more course shots will posted any minute. As I type, Adam is driving 89N to Burlington and is keeping his sites out for a place to pull over, complete uploads  & then jet off to Montreal. Adam – no driving and Facebooking, okay?

We’re gearing up to shoot at this year’s annual Great Bear Chase up at in Calumet. I personally have been shooting this race for about a decade, so its always a pleasure to come up and work. Its a ton of fun too; 500+ skiers, unpredictable weather, and the die-hard attitude of the skiers make it a blast. This year like previous years we’ll be shooting in an official capacity with multiple photographers from a variety of locations, processing, and posting images to the storefront area of the website. Note that las year we were shooting as part of a media project and not as official race photographer – thus no 2007 images online. This year please thank Arnie and the race organization for hiring Brockit Inc. because with our agreement, all racers will be able to download low-res images straight off the website for no cost which are perfect for facebook, tacking on your office wall, refrigerator, or emailing to your friends who have no idea of what a 500 racer event in the middle of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula looks like! Physical prints up to 30″ and high resolution downloads will be available for purchase.

So if you are racing on March 8th, look for our crew (Emily, Rebecca, or me) on the trails, wipe the frozen snot from your face and look like you are having fun!

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…