Tom Bol Photo Blog

2011 was a great year for us, lots of interesting assignments, great workshops around the globe, and the release of my first book, Adventure Sports Photography, Creating Dramatic Images in Wild Places.  I always like to look back on my favorite images of the year and see what was working, what I learned, and what I still needed to work on in my photography. Photography is an evolving process, both in learning and style.  That is what drives photographers, the desire to always create something new and different.  Complacency creates mediocrity.

My year started off with a 5000 mile road trip shooting an assignment for Nikon.  I covered 8 states photographing a wide variety of adventure sports including rock climbing, mnt biking, running, surfing, snowshoeing and skiing.  During a break in the surfing action, I set up my 74″ foot Octabank and snapped a few portraits of surfers.  I’m not usually a big fan of symmetrical compositions, but I really liked this image and the moody clouds in the background.  One big simple light, a good pose and expression, and an interesting background all came together.

My next assignment came from Scott Kelby to shoot some wild and fun winter sports images for a training video for Kelby Training.  We shot a wide variety of images including sequence shots of incredible jumps.  Hard to beat photographing this activity on a prefect sunny blue bird day in Colorado.

I shoot a wide variety of images from portraits to sports to landscapes.  I returned to Yellowstone in winter for my 5th year of teaching a workshop (sold out every year!).  Winter is magical in Yellowstone; the amazing ice crystals and snow formations that drape the trees in the geyser basins never stop amazing me.  This shot was at Black Sand Basin.

This was the year of shooting for my book, and experimenting with new technology and technique.  I did extensive testing of Pocket Wizard’s Hypersync which allowed me to shoot my Elinchrom Ranger packs at 1/8000 of second, unheard performance until this technology came into the picture.  I combined this ability with new gear by Aquatech that allowed me to shoot underwater high speed sync photography using my Ranger.  This image represented a new frontier in adventure sports photography for me.  And thanks to Patrick (the kayaker) who can surf a kayak with more precision in a raging hole than anyone I know.

I continued to experiment with lighting and pushing technique into new directions.  With the help of Manfrotto and Elinchrom, I fine tuned my ‘vertical studio’ to shoot edgy rock climbing images up on the face.  I returned to Sinks Canyon to create this shot with some NOLS instructors.  I worked in the field for NOLS for many years, and it was great to go back to see old friends and familiar crags.

What does 2012 have in store for me?  Lot’s of new and exciting projects are in the works!  I’m going to start off 2012 shooting an assignment in the Virgin Islands next week…things are off to a good start!

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I just finished a 2000 mile road trip in three days.  It sounds long, but time goes by fast when you are doing presentations and photo shoots…especially shoots in Vegas.  And early morning drives sometime result in spectacular sunrises like this one in Salt Lake City.

I started by driving over to Salt Lake City to speak at Pictureline on adventure sports.  This camera store is really amazing, great folks, fun times, and a sold out show.  If you are ever in SLC, stop by and check out Pictureline.  Thanks to Sandisk and Manfrotto for sponsoring the event, and to Pocket Wizard for loaning out Flex and Mini transmitters for folks to try out.  I spoke on the amazing results and new creative ways high speed sync is changing my photography, along with creative ideas in shooting adventure sports.  Then it was off to Vegas.

I arranged to meet up with Priscilla, a showgirl and professional dancer in Vegas.  I’ve worked with Priscilla numerous times in the past, she always comes with a variety of costumes and other props for great shoots.  This time she brought ‘Elvis’.  And Elvis came in a box….

Elvis is Priscilla’s 7 foot yellow Burmese python.  Not the guy with sideburns and white bell bottom pants.  I knew this was going to be a fun shoot.  Priscilla does acts with her snake all over Vegas, and I have to say I think Elvis enjoyed getting some fresh air in the desert!

Our location was in the desert outside of Vegas, a nice place for a belly dancing theme.  The wind was howling in town, but we found a protected area.  For this image I kept things simple.  I used the new Elinchrom inverse deep Octa, one of my favorite new lights.  The background was underexposed about 1.5 stops.  Tech: Nikon D3, 24-120mm F4, ISO 100, F16 at 1/200.

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Just returned from Lander, Wyoming photographing rock climbers in Sinks Canyon.  NOLS is based there, and I lived there and worked for NOLS for years.  I was fixated on climbing in Sinks, there are amazing routes and the canyon is warm enough to climb all year.  I hadn’t been back in a long time, great to reconnect with friends and get on the crags…at least ascending a fixed line.

I did actually get to boulder (climbing low to the ground without gear).  I wanted to create a shot with my white balance set to tungsten, and use a flash with an orange gel to render the climber (me) neutral.  I had planned on using a radio system to trigger my camera, but I got some help from a talented photographer working at NOLS, Lindsay D’Addato.  She worked the camera while I climbed on the cheesegrader boulders.

Next up was working on the main face of Sinks.  Once again my friends at NOLS helped out in a big way.  Mandy Pohja and Brian Fabel came up to climb.  My idea was to use my ‘vertical studio’ to create an edgy, lit shot. Creating this look takes a lot of work from hauling lighting gear and large light stands to the crag as well as rigging the lights and ropes to make the image.  Mandy and Brian were up for hauling gear and rigging ropes. Thanks to Rick Rochelle for setting me up with these two, they were very patient and game for anything.  They could have climbed the route 10 times while I set up the lighting.

Here is the view from below of our set up.  Brian,  who produces some amazing video, shot this image. An Elinchrom Quadra with grid reflector is the accent light to the left.  On the right is an Elinchrom Ranger clipped to a bold on the wall.  Originally we had the Ranger hanging from the stand, but the wind was blowing enough that it looked like the stand was going over.  Brian clipped the pack to a bolt on one of his trips up the route, a much better solution.  A small 24″ square Rotalux softbox is used as the main light.

This cross lighting produces a unique, edgy look to climbing images.  Since the Manfrotto stands (269HDBU) can go up  to 24 feet, I can set up my lighting on the ground, and extend this set up high on a climb.  The daylight exposure was underexposed about 1 stop.  My favorite lens for climbing photos from above is the 24-120mm F4 Nikon.  This lens has VR, Nano Glass and the perfect range for shooting climbing….and it is razor sharp.

Thanks again to everyone at NOLS that made this shoot happen.  Good adventure sports images are often more dependent on the athletes than the photographer!

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I was just starting to wind down the other day when my friend Patrick called with a photo idea.  Patrick is a incredible kayaker, and lucky for me he knows what works in photographing kayakers…and he comes up with some wild shooting ideas.

Patrick wondered how it would look paddling at dusk or even in the dark with a headlamp on. Not just any rapid, but a technical Class 4-5 section of the Cache La Poudre River.  Most folks get gripped paddling this in the daylight, let alone at dark.  I jumped in my car and headed up the canyon.

This was a one shot event.  By the time it was dark enough for my 13 second exposure, I wasn’t sure how Patrick was even going see the river.  Luckily Patrick has paddled this section numerous times, and had no time running the rapid.  Nikon D3, 45mm tilt-shift, ISO 100, 13 second exposure at F32.

I just returned from teaching a workshop in Ouray, and shot some abstract shots of the color. Eric Meola came along to produce some new work.  Eric has had an incredible photography career, and is a great guy.  He had the entire group shaking their camera before the trip was over! Nikon D3, 85mm, 1/13th at F16, ISO 100.

Off to Acadia NP this week, looking forward to combing ocean, fall color and light painting into one shot!

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Busy shooting for a number of projects right now.  Also experimenting with Elinchrom Quadra High Speed Sync, stay tuned, should have the results shortly.

Needed to do a portrait of a mountain biker the other day.  We needed an edgy  commercial look, so we went with three lights to start.

We had a bright blue sky day, so we put up an overhead silk to cut the sun down.  Then added two strip banks, one on either side, and a small octabank as fill on his frontside.  After shooting a few frames, we decided to turn off the fill light octabank, and instead just used the two strip banks for the shot we liked the best.

Tech: Nikon D3, 24-70mm F2.8 lens, 1/125 at F16, ISO 100. Elinchrom Rangers strobes with A heads used, two strip banks and one small octabank.  Skyport wireless system triggered the lights.

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Colorado has had an amazing run off this year, the snow just keeps melting, and the rivers keep flowing.  The Poudre River near my house has been at flood stage for weeks, and is finally starting to recede.  This meant there were photo ops that were unique with the big whitewater.

The narrows of the Poudre are Class 5 (very difficult and dangerous) and at this level no one is paddling this drop.  My friend Patrick has paddled the narrows frequently, and was game to check out the rapids at this level. Like most paddlers, he is looking forward to running this stretch of river once the water goes down.

He jumped out to a boulder with his boat for a photo.  We shot at twilight to get a slow shutter speed for the right effect in the water.  Too slow and the current turns to featureless silky ‘cotton’, too fast and the water doesn’t match the contemplative feel of the shot.  To add some separation and punch up the colors I used an Elinchrom Quadra at full power to add a little light on Patrick.  The light was placed to his right.

Tech: Nikon D3, 70-200mm lens, ISO 100, F22 at 1/5 of a second. Elinchrom Quadra with standard reflector used, full power, triggered using a Skyport wireless transmitter.

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Had a great shoot today with Sir Greg, a local athlete who is very talented in a number of sports.  Wanted to work on some really edgy portraits, raking side lighting and some ring flash fill.  We used three Elinchrom Rangers for this image.  Two Rotalux strip lights are left and right of the model for soft accent light.  I climbed up a ladder to shoot down with ring flash for fill on this shot.  Light falls off rapidly, so this effect makes the model appear to emerge out of a sea of black.  Interesting angles always catch the viewer’s eye. Try shooting from high or really low angles to mix up your portraits.

Next we added a sword into the image.  This picked up some nice reflection from the strip light.  I eliminated the ring flash and other strip bank for a single strip light on this shot.

We went back to two strip lights in a cross lighting position directly opposite one another for the final boxing stance.

Tech: Nikon D300s, 24-70mm, 1/200 at F8, ISO 200.  Elinchrom Rangers, 2 14×35″ Rotalux Strip Banks, 1 Elinchrom Ring Flash, Skyports triggering the strobes.

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Some years you get all the luck.  I have spent my last 26 summers in Alaska, and some years Denali and the Alaska Range barely peak out. Other years you see it day after day.  I just returned from 3 weeks of shooting in Alaska, and had some great windows of clear weather for incredible aerial photography.  After flying and shooting on the south side of the mountain earlier this summer, I had a chance to fly and shoot on the north side of the mountain in July.  Without a cloud in the sky!  Even though Denali is the most prominent and famous mountain in the Alaska Range, a highlight for me was flying right over the French Ridge on Mt. Huntington.  This is a mountain I have some history with…

I flew in with 3 climbing partners one summer season to climb the classic Harvard Route on the West Face.  To access the face,  we had to traverse a double corniced ridge appropriately named the Stegosaur.  This ridge is dangerous, you never really know if you are climbing on a cornice or the actual ridge.  On top of that, we waited weeks in a tent below the face waiting for a break in the weather.  When we finally got good weather, we raced up to start climbing the Stegosaur.  We spent a day just tunneling through deep snow to get on the ridge.  The next day we started our climb across the ridge, and set off a huge avalanche, almost burying two of our party.  We retreated to the tent, broke out some whiskey, and stayed away from the route for a few days.  And then the weather got nasty again.  Mt. Huntington would not be climbed by us that season…sometimes you make the summit, sometimes you don’t.  Better to be safe.

As with all aerial shooting, dial up your ISO and shoot at as fast as you can to ensure sharp shots.  One thing we found with the windows of this plane is using a polarizer resulted in a strange color balance.  Off with the polarizer, and keep on shooting!  Get your lens as close to the window as you can but without touching it to avoid reflections.  Better yet, fly with the door off if your pilot will allow it.

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Or maybe I should say planes, helicopters, jet boats, atvs and dog sleds.  In the middle of assignment work in Alaska this summer, always love going back to where we used to live and work with great clients.  These shoots get really crazy.  The sun sets after midnight in June, and the night never really gets dark.  I had some great weather, so here is a breakdown of a normal day shooting on assignment.

12PM/midnight: clear skies, shoot Denali from overlook, set up tent and climb in sleeping bag.

1:30AM grizzly bear running across road by camp, I’m the only person in a tent…hhmmm.

3:30AM up to shoot early morning light on denali, already plenty light out .

5AM drive to next shooting location.

6:30AM shoot Denali from a new location

8AM board float plane for aerial shooting

10AM drive to next shoot, Musk Ox farm

12Noon lunch

1pm drive to next shoot

3pm board helicopter for aerial shooting/dog sledding

4pm jump on snow machine to chase dog sledders across glacier

6pm dinner

8pm shoot nice light on mountains

10pm bed

I had some great shooting from helicopters and planes this assignment.   The trick with shooting from planes is getting enough shutter speed to reduce blurry shots, and put your lens right against the window if you have a window (some pilots will take doors off for shooting).  I like to shoot 1/500 or faster with my VR on.  This improves my odds for tack sharp images, but shoot a lot since you don’t get these opportunities a lot.

I also use a Singh-ray LB color polarizer for many of my landscape aerials.  This filter really punches up the color and contrast.

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