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For the 2014 Big Shot we photographed High Falls, and that was one of our many winter
time scenes that we've done for the Big Shot. We had approximately 600 people come out,
which was awesome, from the community, alumni, students, faculty, and staff. All joined in
to make this a community painting with light project. So we set up cameras for a long exposure
and so while the shutter was open, the participants painted the scene with light and illuminated
the scene in an absolutely stunning way. One of the most intriguing things about the
picture was the inclusion of the train. CSX brought trains up from Maryland and Florida
and cleaned them up and shined them up for the picture. And one thing we wanted to do
was to give kind of a sense of motion of the train by what the last picture, we make four
pictures, and within the last picture a third of the way, or 25% of the way, through the
exposure the train has engine lights and running lights. A quarter of the way through the exposure,
have the train start to back up. So that it would blur out and give a sense of motion
so that it looks like the train is actually moving into the scene.
Uh, we were asked to be a prop in the foreground for the Big Shot. Uh, so there will be a camera
mounted on a tripod. We won't be recording anything, but we'll just look awesome.
Another one of our partners, ProFoto, hooked us up with six B3 battery packs. The flash
hoods were equipped with colorzoom reflectors, which really helped with us concentrate extra
light on the falls. It was great to have a team just for strobes. And by the end of the
night they were covered in ice but kept working. Every since shooting digital for the project,
Nikon has played a huge role with us. This year shooting with the D800, it has given
us great noise performance and an extremely high resolution image. What's great about
shooting digital is that we're able to download, process, and publish the image with 15 minutes
after the shutter is closed. Making any kind of picture like this takes
a lot of organization, just for the half hour that it takes to make all four pictures. RG&E
was very helpful in terms of controlling the amount of water that came over the Falls.
And the City of Rochester was very helpful to us for turning off all sorts of lights
that went over the river as we looked up the river because we wanted it dark and all of
that because we had a team lighting up the aqua duct, so that we could sort of bring that
out in the background. So next year, is our 30th Big Shot. And as
always we're looking to bigger, we're looking to go better, so be sure to take a look at
our Big Shot website, the Facebook page, to get up to date on all the latest happenings
on our production for next year. But, for now, we're looking to warm up a little bit
as we make plans to go to next year.
Shutter closed! Shutter closed! Thank you all so very much!