The Making of the Fire Dancing Shot

As I alluded in my previous post, I would explain how I made the firedancing photo which I entered in Okiten this year.  The idea began as simply a desire to photograph Zamami's fire dancer for the Zamami People Project.  But I had all summer to think about it and as time passed, I began to want to make it an epic shot - something beyond just a simple long exposure of flames.  I wanted to include an element that made it Zamami.  But darkness complicates this.  I had ideas to have him do the dance at the port while I took the shot from the end of a jetty, placing the village in the background, but I think this would've just ended in a big washout of hotel lights with a small, indistinguishable fire pattern at the bottom.  I don't remember how the thought process jumped to a beach and star trails, but it did.  I scouted three different beaches, photographing all three of them at night.  Eventually I settled on one of the most remote beaches on the island because it offered multiple opportunities at dramatic shots with minimal outside light pollution, yet still containined recognizable Zamami elements.

[One of five 'rare' coconut crabs I came across during my numerous night rendezvous to Nita Beach]

With the location set, I contacted my good friend Yoshio who owns a local guest house.  He helped me form a letter to write to Kiwamu, the fire dancer.  We met with Kiwamu the next day and worked through a misunderstanding of the purpose of the photo shoot (he didn't realize it was for a Zamami photo project) and eventually we settled on a price I would pay to cover his fuel costs and some of his time, which I thought was more than fair.

Next, since I was paying real money for this one shot, I needed to practice.  So when my friends Hazel and Setsuko were out for Sabani in September, I talked them into walking to this beach and using flashlights I'd tied onto strings as mock 'pois' (to imitate the fire on a rope). I set up my camera in the three places I'd previously scouted and had the two ladies walk along the beach swinging their flashlights.  They were great sports and helped me out immensely with my exposure settings and framing ideas.  I think all-in-all it took us over four hours to do the practice shoot and we didn't return until after 1am.

[flashlight practice]

Now I was ready for the fire dancing shot.  We met on a weekend night with Yoshio and his girlfriend, who drove us to the path that leads down a treacherous mountain trail to the beach.

[Yoshio and Kiwamu]

At the beach we did some warm-ups before I was set.  I explained the first shot and what I wanted him to do (i.e. how important it was that he kept moving in one direction because if he spent too much time in one spot the light would overexpose that section of the photo).  It ended up that he was fantastic at understanding what I needed and I got usable shots from all three of my planned points plus a bonus (which ended up being the shot I used).  I was proud of how efficient I was with everything and how I nailed the shots I needed - in retrospect I can't think of anything I would do differently.  :)

I still would like to complete each of the best photos from the three shoot locations so I will not post those flames here, but you can see a sample of the different angles and patterns we did above.

So the most exciting portion of the shoot was done, but that was still only about 33% of the completed shot.  Next I needed the startrails and lastly, I needed Photoshop.

There no clear skies good enough for a two-hour exposure before I left to America in October, so I paid attention every night in November and December until finally a starry night opened up around December 20th.  The next four nights found me at the beach, either fighting with clouds or actually taking photos.  On the night that I got the usable star trails, I was at the beach for seven hours (7pm-2am) completing the three shots.

[A sample shot taken just to get my framing correct.  I know it's beautiful and maybe nicer than the star trails photo, but this is taken at the highest ISO setting my camera offers and the quality is awful.  Taking shots of stars that are not trailing is hard (while maintaining usable quality)]

One of the few things that film is still good at is long, single exposures (i.e. star trails).  When shooting in digital, too much noise develops as the sensor heats up so the best way to shoot star trails is as a composite of many short exposures.  I chose a shutter speed of 30 seconds and put my camera on continuous shoot mode for two hours.  Then I moved to the next spot and repeated.  And again.  Fortunately I brought my computer and watched a couple movies then fell asleep.  But I couldn't see what exactly I was produced until I got home and stacked the 120 exposures together to see the final product.  Here is what I got:

The first exposure of the series for each of those three was about 4-5 minutes.  I did that to make sure and develop some ambient light in the sky and foreground so I could tweak it later (i.e. add contrast).  Without that long exposure the photo would just be black and white - you wouldn't be able to see the island outlines, the beach in the foreground, or the colored sky.

Those shots were not what I had in mind, but the second shot was passable so I went with it as winter once again clouded over the skies.  The last portion of the photo was putting the fire dancing shot together with the star trails shot (taken in the same location) in Photoshop.  That is boring so I won't detail it, but it took a long time and I learned a lot along the way.

Once I finished the composite we once again got a clear, starry night (the Wednesday of the week I was to turn in the photo to the art show), so I ran back to the beach to try to get better star trails.  This is an example of what happens when you forget to do one extra long exposure at the beginning to bring out the detail of the foreground and sky: 

[nothing can be done with this photo so it was a three-hour lesson in what not to do]

[another huge coconut crab]

Lastly I had to print.  At the same time I had to learn to print.  This means adjusting exposure to account for the fact that things look brighter on a computer screen than on paper.  It also means getting the printer and paper profiles matched up until everything is perfect.  In the meantime each of those prints costs me about $8 between the paper and ink.

But I'm happy with the final (for now) fire dancing photo and am excited to get going on the remaining images for the Zamami People Project.

Okiten 2012

For the last month I've been hard at work on a few photos for my 2012 Okiten (Okinawa art show) entry, but I didn't want to show them off until they were finished.  The first photo is one that I developed during the spring of 2011.  I let it simmer in my brain during the summer before finally settling on a plan, which began in September.  The location I selected for the shoot was on one of the furthest beaches from my apartment, which was not convenient.  During the course of this shot I made over 20 trips to the beach to scout, do practice shots, do the real thing, then go back to get the star trails shots.  Between that and the post-processing, there's easily 40 hours into this photograph.  I will do another post later further detailing how it came about.  This shot is actually meant for the Zamami People Project that I am working on, but I liked it enough to use as one of my two Okiten entries.

The actual photo is a composite of ~120 different frames taken over the course of two hours.  What you are seeing in the foreground is a dance performed by Zamami's fire dancer, Kiwamu Miyakubo.

I'm not very optimistic that it will be chosen for display (or a prize) at Okiten, but considering how subjective the judges seem to be, it might get lucky.

The second entry was inspired by an online friend of mine who critiqued last year's entry of a young girl as being 'too easy of a shot' to win at an art show.  She suggested shooting old people instead because they aren't naturally as cute or willing to be photographed as kids.  I spent much of the last year trying to think who would fit the bill and it finally it came to me during Geruma's Sports Day in September when I photographed this man's hands.  He also wove the bamboo baskets that were given as prizes during that rope-making contest, so I approached him in December to ask if he could make a basket and let me photograph him during the process.  He obliged and so I spent a Saturday on Geruma shooting him for two hours, then I went back on Sunday to photograph him using the basket for its traditional historical use, collecting shellfish.

I was pleased with the photographs, which actually turned out to be a little troublesome.  I had 1400 shots to sort through and it was very difficult to narrow down the choices.  I settled on 15 of the best shots and sent them out to some trusted [photographer] friends to get their votes.  Unfortunately the votes were spread all over, accompanied by many valid reasons for the various choices.  Eventually I settled on using the panorama shown, which meant I needed two 'portrait-oriented' photos above.  I wanted one with his face in focus and one with his hands.  The hand shot chosen doesn't compete very well with the landscape hands-only shots I took, but I just couldn't make the formatting work to include a landscape (though now, in retrospect, I think I might have been able to include two landscapes on the right side).

My entry, which was submitted late due to printer troubles I had last week, was numbers 336 and 337 in the photo category.  Of that total, I think around 100 will be chosen for display during the art show and of those, only 4-5 will be awarded prizes.  I am not expecting to win a prize, but I would be quite pleased if my work was chosen for display.  

Here are the completed, framed photos as I submitted them today:

Judging is Wednesday and results are announced Friday.

School Bread

We made cinnamon bread in class at Aka this week!  I used this recipe, referred to me by my friend, Vaughn.

I taught the kids two important things to make bread-making easy: (1) disregard all the steps the recipe gives you, just put all the liquids together, then put all the dry ingredients in (flour last) and (2) don't measure flour, just keep adding it until you get the right consistency (a ball that is just past 'sticky').

[Who does the dishes?  Girls, of course]

[post rising dough - thankfully it wasn't a cold day]

[rolling out the dough]

[adding a thin layer of water - I taught the students that this is the most important step of the whole recipe because if the dough is too wet, all the cinnamon sugar will melt out into a pool at the bottom]

[adding tons of cinnamon sugar]

[I didn't stick around for the tasting because I had to catch a boat, but I daresay this was the best bread I've ever had come out of a class - and I've probably made bread ~10 times with my students]

Homemade Pasta

[It's a lot of work]

Christmas Cards

This is the lesson I do with my kids every year at Christmas.  Usually doing the whole thing (including the snowflake and the writing) would be too much for kindergarten, but at Geruma the kindergarteners are very advanced.  I love these two kids - they have so much personality.  They know the days of the week, weather patterns, fruits and vegetables, the alphabet, and many verbs.  And when I ask them questions in Japanese (outside of class) they always answer with "yes" or "no".  It's very cute.

[You can see they have never written Roman characters before, but I had them do it so that a 10 years from now they can look back with amusement at their first attempt.]

Stock/Family Shoot

A few of the photos from a shoot I did at the beach last weekend:

Huntin' Fool Cover, December 2011

If you've been following my blog for awhile you may remember last year's sheep hunt in Oregon.  I never gave a real thorough recap on the blog, partially because I submitted the story to a magazine that required an exclusivity contract until publishing.  Well, this month I've been published in one of the most popular hunting magazines - and I made the cover!  This is great news because cover stories win a pair of $2000 Zeiss Victory FL T 10x42 binoculars.

Here's a scanned copy of the magazine:

Here's the story (and a few pictures at the bottom):

My winter/spring is probably like most hunters': using the Huntin' Fool to help with my decision-making as I pore through websites of the western states, comparing notes and point totals with my dad and uncles, and finally applying.   The spring of 2010 started like all others: checking websites as the results came in and watching my point totals tick up while the backup plan to an 'over-the-counter' state seemed like the reality once again.  But then I checked Oregon, the second-to-last state to post its results.  I'd drawn the only nonresident Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep tag in the state - one that 535 of us applied for!

I live and work as an English teacher on a small island in Okinawa, Japan, which makes scouting in Oregon difficult.  But thanks to the Internet, I was able to do a lot through email and Skype.  I made hundreds of phone calls to the biologist, past hunters, landowners, and anybody else to whom I could get a phone number.  I gleaned a lot of valuable information from the choices of the lottery and raffle tag holders and also tried to learn as much as I could about the resident tag holder for my same season.  My dad and uncles attended the Oregon FNAWS welcome orientation in July and I was also lucky enough to get a passionate response on an Oregon hunting forum from Shane, a guy who took time off work and away from his family just to join us on the sheep hunt.

It took me 34 hours and over 7000 miles of travel via ferry, flying, and driving before I could meet up with my dad and uncles to embark on this most epic of hunts, one which I am only allowed to draw a tag for once in my lifetime.

Scouting proved difficult as the unit is huge, but having permission and gate combinations sorted beforehand helped immensely.  Shane’s wise decision to bring along his dirt bike helped to reach some of the far corners of the unit while my dad, uncles, and I concentrated on the long, centralized ridges.  But the pickings were thin – and mostly ewes.  More than once I’d wished for a bull elk tag, but I reminded myself not to get too greedy.  I had talked to one of the two hunters from the September sheep season and he offered advice on where he'd last seen the biggest rams.  My dad and I made a plan to hike seven miles out that ridge and hunt it from above on opening morning.

We reached the end of the ridge in the late afternoon and set up a small camp in the only grove of trees before making our way to the very end for evening glassing, where my dad promptly spotted three rams.  I examined them as best I could on 60x before finally determining that one was probably a full-curl on his left and over a full curl on the right horn. It gave me a lot to think about that night while my dad did what dads do: he built a fire much larger than we needed.

On opening morning we were up at dawn for the 10-minute walk to the end of the ridge, where we could still see the rams feeding on a faraway point.  Just as they appeared to be going out of sight, two of the rams turned and began working back towards us.  Eventually the bigger one bedded on a point facing us, conveniently so that his hide served as a light-colored backdrop from which we could judge his horn lengths every time he turned his head.  This sheep hunt differed from all my deer and elk hunts  in that I had ample time to make a decision. There came a point when I was sure of the horn lengths, a little apprehensive about the mass, but feeling like I had all the information I needed to make a decision.  That, of course, was agonizing.  It was 9am on opening morning of a ten-day once-in-a-lifetime hunt and I had a dream ram in front of me.  But I was also hunting in a unit that put out a 189 ram last year and has the potential to produce more like that.  If I subtracted the 3-4 inches from the broomed side along with my questions about the mass, I could be looking at a low-180's ram.  Was that what I came for?  Well, the answer, as it became apparent, was that I came for a ram that would make me happy.  I had to balance my circumstances - a huge unit, unguided, help that is getting up in age - and conclude that this was a beautiful ram less than a mile away and unaware of my presence.  So I decided to take the plunge down off the top of the mountain and see if I could get a shot at him.  My dad followed a little ways, but stopped knowing that we'd have to go back up to retrieve the camp.

I made a plan to follow the backside of a ridge down and pop out across the creek bottom from the big, bedded ram.  The smaller ram was feeding in the bottom so I expected the larger ram to follow.  I'd take him when he fed closer to me.  But I only made it a short distance when the big ram jumped up, ran to the bottom, crossed to my side, and began working out away and to my right.  I quickly adjusted my plan and climbed back over to the center finger ridge to head him off from above.

When I came upon a cliff - an inevitability in this country - I started ranging everything below me.  All the likely shooting windows were 250-300 yards - further than I'd prefer but a distance I can do.   I only sat for a few minutes before I spied the two rams feeding between large boulders below. I tried to set up my camera to video the shot, but fighting the tall grass with my short tripod became a chore that cost me at least two shooting chances.  After moving down to the left 50 yards, I set the camera down to concentrate on the nice window I was expecting the sheep to enter.  The big ram came out first, standing broadside at 304 yards.  I quickly checked that the curls extended down to his jawline and came up to his nose (and beyond) before settling the bobbing crosshairs behind his shoulder and pulling the trigger. I ejected the .270 Win. shell, put in another, and lined up again.  Unfortunately the ram was still standing.  He had flipped directions, but he was still broadside so I took another shot.  The rams were confused after the first shot, but now they knew trouble was brewing.  The younger ram led the way back.  I looked left and saw him run through a window before the bigger ram appeared and paused.  Recognizing this could be my last good chance, I fired once more before he stepped out of sight.

I worked my way down until I could look back into the hole where the ram had last stepped and there, on the ground, was a downed sheep.  I put the binoculars up and immediately felt an awful knot twist in my stomach.  The left horn looked half-to-three-quarter curl.  Something I had learned in my sheep research was that when rams run, the biggest always leads.  Even though I was sure the smaller ram had been the first to retreat, doubt crept in.  I ditched my rifle and pack to be more agile on the 20-minute ravine crossing, but once I reached the sheep and lifted his head, I was relieved to see I had in fact killed the ram I was after.

When I got back to my dad I sat down without saying anything, not realizing until I sat down that his vantage point didn’t afford him a view of the action and he didn’t yet know the outcome.  After recounting the story and radioing the result to the rest of the team, we hiked back up to get our camp.  Shane immediately set out from the truck and reached the ram at the same time my dad and I returned.  A flurry of picture-taking ensued along with appreciation for the ram's ability to die on the only flat spot around.  The meat-cutting went quickly, the pack down out of sheep country did not.  Needless to say, we slept well that night.

The next day, the second of the season, we were packing up to move onto our next hunt: South Dakota pheasant hunting.  But we had to stop at the Enterprise Fish and Game office first, where the biologist took a green score of the horns then – much to my dismay – drilled a hole in the horn for a DNA sample and to insert an identification plug.  The final Boone and Crockett score on this 7.5-year-old ram was 182 4/8.

It’s hard to explain hunting tag lotteries, once-in-a-lifetime $1300 sheep tags, and B&C scores to non-hunters.  It’s even harder doing it to children who speak a different language. So instead, when I returned to Okinawa I spent a lesson with each of my Japanese classes giving them a video and pictorial tour of the American hunting experience and its cultural importance to us.  I was also able to share a sample of Bighorn Sheep summer sausage with every student, which they loved.