About 10 minutes into the set up for this shoot I knew my plans were WAY WAY off. I had planned on attaching over a dozen crepe paper streamers from the tree to the bench so they would look like lasers shooting back into the space. Having never worked with steamers outside I realized why streamers weren't a major staple of backyard birthday parties while I was growing up. Wind.The weather was hardly windy but the slight breeze quickly turned my straight line of streamers into a giant arc as I struggled to get masking tape to stick to the bark. This wasn't going to work. I couldn't get one streamer to stay straight much less over a dozen.
This is where collaboration can be kind of tricky but also really great. I had to change plans on the spot. It was too windy to drape streamers from point A to point B. To windy to drape them anywhere and still be able to control them, not to mention that Terry would have to be able to shoot those images and moving makes the shots much more complicated.Having someone there at first was a little nerve racking- I didn't know what I was going to do and there Terry was asking questions and giving unsolicited advice. There was a minute there where I didn't want any of it. Then Terry reminded me that I had talked about weaving streamers into the bench. YES! That was my first idea, I had just wanted to use the space differently but I also love the idea of weaving on site and gave it a try. After the first row of purple I knew this was the right move. An hour later I still had my gradient still and was making stripes across the park bench.
It took about an hour to do the weaving, then Terry got a chance to shoot. The breezy weather that was bringing in Tuesday's afternoon showers was kicking into high gear so Terry needed a lot of time between shots since he had to wait for the wind to stop before taking each photo.
He began by shooting for the panoramic photo, since that will be a composite image that process took about 30 minutes before Terry was able to switch tripods to get the straight shot.
By that time clouds had rolled in completely changing the light between images.
