When I was a young grip/electric, there was a gaffer who always brought a 35mm camera to set. Film photography was the only option back then. He was always taking pictures of our setups; especially if it was something unusual or cool looking. I wish I had to foresight to do the same years ago. There are so many jobs where we did something cool and there are no pictures of it. Cameras are ubiquitous on set now. Everyone has a camera in their pocket with their smart phone.
When there is down-time on-set, like waiting for a wardrobe change, I'll often take a picture of something interesting, often common-place, on-set. This is a picture of an Aputure 10X fresnel lens.
And an Octabox 5 on a Creamsource SpaceX on the beach at night.
This surreal photo caught me setting up lights on a shoot in Louisville, KY (August 2022). There's a hazer near me, running at full. The green glow is from Titan tubes rigged over my head. I'm working a DMX controller for some ETC Lustr 2s. Thanks to Adam Snyder for taking the great picture!
Working in the rain on a movie near Mountain View, AR in 2021. Thanks to Solomon Willis for taking this great picture!
The best boy (Chance, the best best ever!) brought this lamp to me from an Arrimax. It's one use away from a catastrophic failure!
No budget for a condor, no problem! Here's a compact 12K hung over a railing on a Matthew's Max stand. It is an amazing tool.
Me on set of Ethan Hawke's "Wildcat". I don't remember the story about the sunglasses. They are not mine. Really.
This was a fun Halloween shoot for Ron Foth Advertising. The board op, Brian Whitlock, did a great job programing the skypanels overhead to add an over-all green glow, but at the same time, they would randomly do lightning flashes. The shot was a 'one-er' with a technocrane moving through a desolate foreground up to the cone which was full of zombies. There's a 4k par in the middle of the cone. The edge of the cone is lines with Titan tubes doing a green glow with some effects.
It's real blood. I was carrying too much gear up the ramp of a truck, slipped and scraped my knees. Chuck behind me in the picture did the same thing moments later!
We are at Holiday World. I loved working on commercials there. Some of my favorite all time jobs and clients. I gaffed commercials there for years.
Another one of my all-time favorite shoots was Stephen David Production's American Genius. This picture is of HMIs ready to light a scene inside the old shoe factory in Martinsburg, WV.
Here I am with the rest of the electric department on the set of American Genius with our greatest hero; Nikola Tesla.
I was on a job with several Mole Richardson 20Ks. One head was dimmer than the other. We turn the head off and pulled the lamp (once it had cooled). This is what we found. This lamp was on the verge of catastrophic failure. The fun part; it looks like Bender from Futurama.
This is the set of Hard Kill. I love this picture. There is so much going on from the director at his monitors to the actors on the set in the background. The location was the old closed US Shoe factory in Norwood, Ohio. It was an amazing location. It has since been demolished. In the picture, you can see one of my "tall" quasar fixtures. It's a 4-six foot Quasar crossfade tubes in a Kino Flo Mega fixture. There's a row of HMIs coming through the skylights in the main room.