Shooting portraits on the top of a really high boat deck

I went out to San Diego for a D-65 workshop with Seth Resnick and Jamie Spritzer. If you feel completely confused with digital photography and workflow, these guys provide one of the best workshops out there. Their energy and good humor actually make learning about converting color profiles and bit depths fun!

Either way, as I was driving out of San Diego I came over a ridge to see a row of windmills spinning in the distance. I was hypnotized. Once I got to the base of them, I shot a bunch of photos of them. To see windmills from a distance or in a magazine is one thing, but to sit under them while they spin is just really cool. I've always been fascinated by them since then.


Last year, Barbara called me from San Diego and asked me if I wanted to go to a small seminar on wind energy. The seminar would be held at the same windfarm that I photographed a few years earlier. I was stoked! We basically learned how they went through the planning process, how the land lease was arranged from the Kumeyaay tribe, how energy from the wind gets transformed to usable power, and so on. We then got to tour the site, control rooms, transformers and the base of the windmills themselves.

I was currently working on my portrait portfolio and I thought, a shot of the project manager would be a great addition to my project. I asked Rob Titus, the project manager, if he would be into doing a shot and he agreed. I called him up a couple days later to arrange a shoot and his schedule had become quite busy. It didn't look like we were going to be able to put something together while I was in town. Discouraged, I had to wait. I hate having to wait.

I kept his info though and contacted him later in the spring when I was coming out again. I asked if he was still into it and he said sure. I then went went one step further and and said, "You know a shot of you on top of one of the wind turbines would make a really cool shot." Fully expecting him to respond with..."oh corporate would never go for that", I braced myself for the less than desirable answer. The next day, I got an email saying, "Sounds great. We just have to fill out some liability forms and you have to do a training session. But I don't think it will be a problem."
YES!!!! I get to make a cool portrait. I've done quite a bit of big wall climbing photography, so I was fairly comfortable with the exposure of working on a really exposed location.

Barbara had a marathon that morning so she pretty much just chilled in the sun at the base of the wind turbine and relaxed her tired legs. Rob got me dialed out in safety gear, gave me a extensive safety training lesson and up we went. The turbines on the Kumeyaay farm are 280' to the main turbine deck. The turbine is accessed by ascending a ladder up the shaft. There is a cable that runs up the ladder, that you connect a safety ascension device to. If you slip while climbing the ladder, the ascension device catches you with a camming action on the cable. Despite this, it's still scary as hell when you are 150' up the ladder. I think the tubular effect of the shaft makes it worse.

When we got on top, Rob explained the safety measures to walking on the deck. I had two lanyards that were to be clipped in at all times to a small 8"railing that went around the turbine deck perimeter. Well, my photographic ADD brain went into full force and as soon as we were out of the hatch, I started making my way across the deck without clipping into anything. I was quickly reprimanded by Rob and clipped in immediately. At that point, I realized that there was a 40 mph wind trying to blow my hard hat off. Weee, this will be fun!

Not really knowing exactly what to expect, I had to assess the situation of what and how I was going to shoot. I brought a selection of lenses, flashes and other equipment but it became very apparent that K.I.S.S(Keep it simple stupid) was the rule of the land up here. We were working on a deck that was quite similar to a boat deck, maybe 8' x 25', 280' high and quite windy. Any sort of flash diffusion was out of the question. Multiple flashes were gonna take too long and be a pain in the ass. The two medium and telephoto lenses weren't going to make it out of the bag. But they sure were fun to haul up that really long ladder!

I had Rob do some inspecting kind of pose and he happily complied and looked at one of the gauges. Since I didn't have much room to work with, I had to hold on to the gauge on the other side of the deck with one hand and lean back as far as I could to show the other windmills in the background. After seeing me hanging back over the side of the deck, Rob shouted over the wind, "It looks like you're used to working in these conditions!" Actually, when in the moment of shooting, I sometimes get too focused on the task at hand.

We then moved over to the other side of the deck, closer to the props to shoot another photo. BTW, this turbine was shut down for maintenance and wasn't operating while we were up there. The prop was sitting at a cool angle so I tried to get Rob, the prop and the other wind turbines in the background all in the composition. The sun was low in the sky and I had to shoot into backlight. In order to retain the rich blue sky with the bright white turbines, I knew I had to pull a flash out on this one. I set up a 550 with a pocket wizard and held it as far out to my left as I could. I prefocused my 24mm and shot with my right hand. The wind was blowing pretty hard so braced my camera on my pack to keep it still. It took about 5 test shots to get the flash dialed and then I took several shots and compositions. Rob asked me what else I wanted to do and I was confident that I got what I wanted. It was a wrap.