Story Shoot: NERF’D ONE

12/27/09 – Rebecca Getsfrid – Commercial and Editorial Portrait Photographer in Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon

See my newest NERF shoot here.

I told myself over the past few weeks, as I was preparing for this shoot: “I’m not going to rush the shots. I’m going to nitpick every mistake, and reshoot it until it’s perfect.”

I didn’t listen to myself. And it shows. It didn’t help that I still had some food poisoning symptoms (never eating at Shari’s again), but mostly it’s just a quirk of mine where when I’m working with other people – particularly people I’m paying in sandwiches – I feel like I’m wasting their time if I don’t get things done as quickly as possible. These shots are pretty much straight from camera.

The series opens with our special operative hidden behind a tree, ready to ambush some sort of small party. We had two people not show up for the shoot, so the farthest back person in the trio is my assistant, Joelle, who was not really dressed for the part. I think quite a few people wouldn’t notice it if I didn’t say it, but it’s my blog, and I get to nitpick my own shots. I also would have liked to bring some fill in on the dark side of Ray, here, but I was working with only two lights. I’m really considering picking up a 2nd LumoPro 120 at this point (or going big and getting another vagabond ii).



The second shot gives the viewer a better idea of what our protagonist was looking at. In this shot we’ve swapped out the assistant stand-in for Ray (who was seen in shot one). I wish I had shot this low and with a wide angle, but my hastiness got the better of me, and I stuck with the 50/1.4. I also dropped the shutter speed to 1/90th, which leaves just the tiniest bit of motion blur in their movement. It’s most noticeable in the loss of detail on Marcus’s very fine suit.



In our third shot, our protagonist is sighting up the trio, ready to make his strike. I’m 99% happy with this shot, though I wish I had used both lights here so that I could keep his face at this level while keeping the gun a bit darker. As Drew Gardner says, if you want to show off texture, light things from the side, and it really helps make that tree look fantastic.



A third light would have again come in handy in the fourth shot. Here, Ray has assassinated himself, James is about to move out after him, and Marcus is running for cover. I like the light on Ray and James, but Marcus is all natural light here and it shows. I also wish I had taken a few more frames to get slightly more natural reactions, or perhaps shot from higher and in front of James, to really put the focus on an individual.



In the fifth, we’ve got James matching almost exactly the pose of Ray a few frames earlier. When I do this again, I need to think about composition over the entire series, and not just what looks good in each individual frame. Although not fully blown, I don’t like the super bright highlight on the stock of the gun, but again side lighting really makes the balaclava pop.



The sixth shot I’m just plain not happy with. We’ve got motion blur from the shutter speed, the action looks fake, and the lighting is bad. I really should have worked on it longer.



I love the seventh shot, though there’s a tiny, almost completely unnoticeable bit of purple fringing on the snow to grass transition at the left of the frame.



In the 8th and final shot, our special operative has tracked down the cartel leader, and lines up his shot. While I think I should have powered up the flash on marcus in the background a bit, I’m super happy with this one.

So yeah, not perfect, but I had some fun doing it (even though I was afraid I would vomit or crap myself the entire time). Besides those nitpicks though, I really liked several of the shots, and still think the concept is sound. I don’t know if I will revisit this exact story again, but I have more nerf based shoots rattling around in the brain.