The Newcastle 'See Change' Panorama

Recently a client sought to purchase usage rights for one of my stock images to be used as a long narrow banner in an airport. While the picture looked great as part of their bold branding design the filesize itself was too small for the extra wide reproduction.

I suggested that we shoot a new picture in a format more suited to the output size required. To keep costs down I recommended my Commissioned Stock pricing model. While this doesn't suit all assignments it fitted perfectly here.

Essentially, a commissioned stock shoot is one where I make a picture to suit a client's brief but am also able to include it in my online stock library. The fee is negotiated according to the usage required and the production costs involved but is significantly lower than a traditionally commissioned assignment.


Newcastle SEE CHANGE - Images by Paul Foley

Please click on the pictures to see them larger or to purchase a print

I decided to shoot a multi frame panorama with the RAW files to be processed in Lightroom and then stitched in Photoshop CS5. This would give a very wide file with enough pixels for the extra large reproduction.

Once this was sorted we had to get the shoot organised and done quickly. Gemma, the client, sourced two willing surfers, Chris and Simon, to be the models. This may seem obvious but shooting lifestyle or sports requires believable models who know and understand the situation being photographed. Besides, who else but surfers and mad fisherfolk are going to turn up at a beach before sunrise!

Susan Gilmore Beach was selected as the location and we set aside the following Friday for a pre dawn meet up. Of course it was winter and would no doubt be very cold.

I checked the beach the afternoon before to sort out the best way to get around to the rock shelf in what would be darkness. The swell had come up and, although the tide would be low when the sun rose, we would still have to walk across a very rocky and wave swept shoreline to get to the location. In the dark. Surf reports were indicating high surf conditions for the morning with the weather expected to be clear and bright. The thing was, though, we needed to get around to the location before the 'bright and clear' part of the dawn.

On July 4th in 1884 an American clipper celebrated it's last Independence Day. The 'Susan Gilmore' was wrecked on the small beach that would remember it in name. On that day all 14 crew as well as the ships' two dogs, cat and bird survived. Although the Susan Gilmore's demise was met in much stormier conditions, tomorrow would be July 8th,  2011 and the surf was expected to be high and charging in. Lucky for us the timing turned out to be coincidence and not omen.

The next morning I arrived to find Chris sitting on the bonnet of his car peering into the darkness. The noise and barely visible lumping shapes told us that the surf was big. While Chris waited for the others I went down to see if we could get around to the shooting location without drowning the talent, client and equipment. We couldn't. Did I mention the dark? By the time I got back the others had arrived and were in Simon's van watching a surf movie. Oh, the rigours of modern surfing!

Eventually, in murky, predawn light we headed around to the little beach. Gemma and I zigged, zagged and hopped close to the cliff base. Chris and Simon, in wetsuits and carrying their boards, waded through waves sweeping across the rock shelf.

Aside from the more accessible time of day during which they occur I do prefer shooting sunsets to sunrises for one important technical reason. As the sun sets the best light arrives - you can see the colours strengthen and become more vibrant. At sunrise that beautiful light emerges from the dark and leaves very quickly. This sunrise image would require 9 separate frames to be stitched together. Each panorama would take several minutes in quickly leaving light that wouldn't be back for 24 hours and would never be the same.

Timing is everything in photography and even more so with this picture. I would have to time the first shot on the extreme right with the incoming waves as I panned to the left a few degrees at a time. From an elevated position on a large rock I shouted across the noise of the surf to arrange Chris and Simon how I wanted them to stand and to place them at the spot that would be captured in the 7th frame.

After what seemed like a long time for the guys to be standing in the cold water and freezing wind the light on the horizon achieved a pleasing glow. A series of waves began their journey from right to left. I shouted "Shooting", Chris and Simon returned to the planned pose and I panned with the waves, stopping at pre-determined degree markings on the panorama head to make each frame.

We made a few more panos then headed back to the carpark and then down to Merewether Beach for a cuppa at the kiosk. Protected from the wind by the surf club the guys could warm up as we watched the big waves being ridden by those surfers who had made it out the back.

The picture is now hanging at Newcastle Airport which is a very modern regional facility servicing the Hunter Region on Australia's East Coast. The banner features the 'See Change' Newcastle logo - strong vibrant branding being used to attract visitors, business and new residents to Australia's seventh largest city.

I'm quite biased about Newcastle because I grew up there. Although I moved 160 kilometres south to Sydney about 7 years ago some of my family and many friends are still there. It really is a great place to visit, live and do business with.

A successful photograph is the sum of the team that works on it and special thanks go to Gemma, Chris and Simon.

Credits
The Surfers: Christopher Tola, Simon Drinkwater
Client: Newcastle City Council
Client Rep/Producer: Gemma der Kinderen
Agency: PeachAds / Megan Duncan
Equipment: Canon 1Ds Mark 3, Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens, Acratech GP Ballhead
Software: Lightroom 3 / Photoshop CS5

Meet me in Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens for one of my DSLR Portrait Photography Workshops this October and November