Week 8: 52 Week Creative Portraiture Photo Challenge

The photo shoot for Week 8 was pretty intense. When local photographer Ace Wheelie signed up to be a part of my photo challenge, I knew I had to do something spectacular for his shoot. Not only is he a great photographer, he also does super-creative photo editing and manipulation.

My idea for his shoot was to incorporate real fire into a night photo shoot. Ace brought along his talented friend Justine, who is a fire performer (and also cosplayer and scuba diver and sky diver and basically an all-around badass person).

We used long-exposure photography and strobe lights gelled with blue to create fire scupltures surrounding Ace. I decided to use blue gels to contrast the yellow and orange of the flame with the cool blue of the light to create a more striking image.

Justine created amazing fire shapes and Ace modeled his Canon camera and Wacom tablet, both essentials in his work. I used my Nikon D7000 and Alien Bee B400s with a Vagabind Mini for portable power.

Thanks to Robin, Doug, Drake and Heather for assisting!

For Photographers: I learned this technique of using long exposure and manually triggering the flash a few years ago, but this is the first time I have used it since. I am considering doing a shootout using a model and this technique, so let me know if you would be interested in participating by using the comment section below, or by emailing me at noel@noel-nichols.com