07.14.2010

Ladies and Gentlemen… Brad Allen

by merrick

Sometime you go out to photograph something that you have never photographed before, and you have a vision of an image in your mind, and expect to do great things. Then you get out there and realize that nothing is working out the way you had it planned. So now what? Accept the fact that you didn’t get what you wanted and move on? Or go back out and try to make it better? After hooking up with Greg from Lake Lessons here in Austin, (if you want to learn how to wakeboard, give these guys a call. They are super professional in everything they do) we set up a photo shoot with one of their instructors, Brad Allen. The concept was “Wake boarding in Austin” and what better way to show this than to have the iconic Pennybacker bridge as a back drop. One of main problems with the first time we went out was that we decided to meet up on Friday, at 6:00 pm, at the 360 bridge. Let me reiterate. We went to one of the most popular boat launches….. on a Friday…. AT 6:00 o’clock… when everyone is getting their weekend started early. This place becomes a cluster _____. What were we thinking??!?! I have to say that Brad did the best he could and we walked away that day with some decent imagery, but at the end of the day, you want to always ask yourself, “Could I have made this better?” If you’re not asking yourself that, then you’re not continuing to push.

Fortunately we were able to meet up again, but this time on a Monday, and this time knowing exactly what shot we needed to concentrate on, so the rest was just nailing down the timing. After a couple of passes, we knew what we had to do. We concentrated our efforts on just that and it didn’t take long to get the shot that we had all envisioned. After we nailed the shot, we had some free time to just have fun, relax and do some fun shooting. The first shot is the concept shot that we were going for, and the following two are just goofing off, having a good time, which is what it is really all about.