After trekking back from Keuka Lake to Buffalo, NY – We finished our preparations and packed up for our ‘All-You-Can-Jet’ adventure.  We caught a 5:30am ride to BUF and arrived at JFK by 8:00am.

I caught up with Morgan Johnston, Greg Krause, and Matt McCall; friends from last years http://www.twelvehoursinacity.com project.

JetBlue threw a nice party in T-5, with plenty of sweet #AYCJ shwag for all the jetters in attendance. Dunkin Donuts provided free coffee and donuts for people to socialize over. The New York Jets ‘Flight Crew’ also stopped by to entertain the masses and provide some excellent photo ops.

Marty St. George stirred up the party when he announced a new plane in the jetBlue fleet named “All-Blue-Can-Jet” which features a new livery design.

After catching up on some e-mail and developing some quick bug fixes for http://www.netsetjet.com. Amber and I parted with our #AYCJ friends and headed for Meg’s house in Brooklyn/Queens.

At the t-5 taxi terminal, our driver ended up in a screaming match with the Port Authority officer.  The confrontation was resolved quickly as our driver sped off screaming obscenities with us in the back preparing for the worse.  However, our travelers luck held strong and we made it to Queens without further incident.

We hung out on a stoop in  Ridgewood/Bushwick waiting for Meg to show up.  Then we took a nap and prepared for this evenings festivities.  Catching up with old friends and trying to sneak in a photo shoot if I can find a model and the time.

Please take a moment to write a comment about this post if you enjoyed it, let me know what type of photos you’d like to see more of on the rest of the trip.

Safe Travels,

Clark

Buffalo CarShare asked me to stop by and photograph them for a feature in ArtVoice.

Car Sharing is a service that offers the piece-of-mind of the automobile without the up-front costs, hassles, or environmental impacts of private vehicle ownership. Members rent vehicles on an hourly basis for errands or irregular trip, while relying on other modes of transportation (such as walking, bicycling, taking transit or carpooling) for their daily commute.

When I arrived on location:

It was a rainy and windy day, so we started setting up by putting everybody in one of their compact cars (for the lulz).  This was actually incredibly difficult to light due to the compact space, inverse square law, and all the gobos created from the frame and structure of the car.

Buffalo CarShare share a Car!

In the final lighting set up:

I put the camera on the dash with a pocket wizard attached (extremely tight fit); a Vivitar HV285 with wizard in a 28″ softbox in front of the windshield around 15 feet from the car, and another pocket wizard and Vivitar HV285 in the center console powered down to try and match the softbox (This was needed to kick up the light in the backseat, I was still having fall-off issues).  I asked the back seat subjects to tilt their heads slightly foward and down to minimize the “monster lighting” effect that occurred as they were lit from below by the strobe in the center column.

My regret on the shot was that I  set my focal depth too shallow (it was set at Macro and probably could have been set at 3 or 4 feet and had everyone in focus) ,  I was firing “blind” and this was the third lighting set up we had tried with the car – so after about 5 frames I called it a wrap(excuses excuses).  It’s  important to keep the energy up and the fun flowing during a group shoot, if you don’t people get bored and your images get crappy in a hurry.   If something isn’t working, just move along.  If you get tunnel visioned on a shot that isn’t working, you lose the opportunity to find the really great image that is waiting for you nearby.

The image is fun and shows the dynamic of the group, so no serious complaints from me. I’ll just take my lessons learned and implement them on my next shoot.

Funny side note: The man in the middle of the back seat is actually in the trunk since there wasn’t enough room for all three of them.