A Bacon Sandwich as Big as Your Head
Day 1:
Ok, so it’s my birthday. 0010 hours on my birthday to be exact. Meh… I hate red eyes, but at least I tend to sleep pretty well just about anywhere. Its just the hassle of having to do something else in the morning other than sitting in my underwear drinking coffee. Granted, I probably still could, but I would rather spare the embarrassment. The plane ride sucked hard, but I’m still young so it doesn’t phase me too much.
After a 1/2 hour of waiting for my cases to trundle off the belt, Dave and Kirk pick me up at the airport and bring me to the hotel. Dave lets on that Kirk is the guy who did the Nirvana Nevermind cover with the swimming baby and the dollar bill, cool as hell. You know the one, or if you don’t, find out. I slept a couple more hours at the hotel (possibly my shortest hotel stay ever, except that night in Nogales…cough cough) and we head off to Grayling at 1200 hours. A three hour trek into the heart of nowhere. Halfway there we stopped at a small restaurant in Birch Run called Tony’s. This is not the kind of place I would normally stop, not because I don’t like little dinners, but because we couldn’t find the place. It took me looking on Google via my phone while driving around erratically to find it.
This meal will go down in history as one of the most pleasurable and painful meals I have ever consumed. Watch the video below. And yes, that is a pound of bacon, with a tiny piece of lettuce and sad slice of tomato. I ate it all and I’m not proud(well, just between you and me, I am) and I honestly haven’t been able to eat bacon since then. Oh ya, and the place was recommended to us by an elderly JEWISH man on the plane. Permalink to Video
3 pounds of bacon. So little time.
Day 2: First day of shooting.
We set up in the gym of Camp Graying and this will be our home for the day. Most of the shooting over the course of the day consists of studio type shots with lots of wardrobe changes. The National Guard are switching to a new uniform style and the models are all wearing different ranks for the shoot. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but some of them really ARE Majors and Lieutenants, and I can’t figure out who to salute.
Today marks the most images captured in a day on our Leaf back, 2400. Marked also by several 15 and 30 minute spans of shooting as fast as possible, an image every 1.2 seconds. EEK.
We move outside for the last part of the day and shoot chaplains in front of Humvees. Moving to the shoot would have been a bit of a drag, having to break everything down and then rebuild it all. But thats the beauty of having an army at your disposal. It was quite a sight watching 8 soldiers carrying my capture cart down the road for me =)
Day 3:
Rain, and lots of it. All I could do was huddle in the tent with our cart while it poured around me. I plastic bagged and gaffer taped all the cable connections and repeaters, never had a single problem, but a little stressful none the less. The choppers didn’t want to fly today, so we will have to shoot them tomorrow. Today also reminds me of why I love the military, toys, big big toys. Having tracks, fire trucks, ambulances, and what ever else we needed at our disposal was in a word, fun. Thankfully we got to move into the TMC (The Medical Center) for the end of the day. Talk about straight out of a 50’s horror film, this place was eerie, sterile, and quiet all at once. The only real problem was having all white walls, which made it hell to light.
Not nearly as many images, but a much longer day overall.
We retired to the Grayrock Cafe where we are promptly informed that the cook has spilled the fryer on herself and is in the ER. They fix us sandwiches and bring us enough beer that strangely, karaoke sounds like a good idea.
Day 4:
Last day of shooting. More playing around with the medical tents on the parade field, except this time with the sun shining and birds signing. The morning is spent waiting; the birds are late. We get false hope as the choppers skim the field and fly off again for refueling. Once they return, hell breaks loose. Dave wants to get shots of them hovering over the equipment and tents, and this is a bit of a problem. Even with three foot stakes, and 10 soldiers holding them down, the tents still want to take flight. The prop wash is amazing and sucks up several small objects into the rotors. Watch my short video below as I try to follow Dave as he shoots. The experience of having a Chinook hovering 100 feet about your head is something that will remain with me forever. Permalink to Video
Dave shoots away as Ziggy shields him from the sun and the flying debris.
Most of the day is spent photographing setups with the choppers sitting still and the medics making fake crisis runs. However, the best bit was the last couple hours of the day. We went up in the Chinook and shot helicopter to helicopter to the Black Hawk. The original plan was to light from the Chinook the the Black Hawk, but the engine exhaust goes exactly across the rear bay doors. Ruining any chance of shooting out that way. Dave resorts to strapping himself in and leaning out the side of the chopper. I’m worried for his safety, but i’m distracted by his massive hair as it is whipped about in a frenzy by the prop wash.
Choppers are loud, in an unreal sense. Even with earplugs it simply drowns out all thought. Not subwoofer in a Civic loud, but more like nails on a chalk board loud, over and over again. It reduces non crew communication to simple hand signals. However, the ride is quite comfortable and smooth, a lot like the back seat of a Lincoln.
Strike party was short but sweet, well for me at least. I had to finish setting color, exposure and renaming all the images. All told 5,800 in three days of shooting. Reno 911 keeps me company in my periphery as the images scroll by.
Day 5: 0730 hours
I hand Dave his delivery hard drive. All 5,800 images have been corrected, renamed, and converted to DNG. He flies with a copy to Texas, and I have two copies on my flight. So if one plane goes down, the other at least has one copy of the shoot on it. Though, if I’m stranding on a desert island, I have other things to worry about. Like befriending a coconut.
I manage to sleep longer on this flight than on my birthday, oh well…
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