So, a couple of weeks ago I posted about my first experience attempting to shoot the famous Texas Blue Bonnets. This past weekend, I got an unplanned second attempt, and I am pretty happy with the results. It was a complete surprise shoot, so I didn't have the ladder than I mentioned would have been nice to have on my next shoot, all I had was my daily carry camera, which stays in my car just in case of days like this one. My everyday camera carry kit consists of my Fuji X-T1 with the 18-135mm lens, and the Fuji EF 42 Hotshoe flash. All the shots in this post were made using that gear combo. I also keep my Mefoto Backpacker in the car just in case, but didn't use it for this shoot.
Here's how it came about. A month or so ago, one of the local acro-yoga crew I have connected with here in San Antonio posted about a 5K inflatable obstacle course race that he wanted to get a team together to run. I did one several years ago with my wife (just girlfriend at the time) and some trapeze friends back in San Diego, and had a great time, so I signed up.
Race morning came, and as I pulled into the parking area, noticed the fields between the parking area and the race checkin/start were full of blue bonnets and some other colorful spring flowers. A few moments later I realized that I was about to spend the day with some really beautiful and photogenic people with some cool skills, so I told everyone that if we had any energy left after the race we should do an impromptu blue bonnet acro photo shoot. We did, so we did. Once I had the settings and fill flash dialed in, I even passed the camera off and got in a couple of the shots, which almost never happens. (I'm the base)
Overall I am really happy with how these turned out. I still wish I would have had a ladder to shoot from a down angle. I know, with a bunch of acro-yogis we could have done a two high and had the top person shoot. I did think of that, but I am on the heavy side for a flier so didn't want to crush anyone, and also didn't want to burden anyone else with having to worry about the camera while they were standing on my shoulders. (although I did run a little bit of the race with someone on my shoulders, just for fun.)
Since I couldn't go high, I decided to play with a few low angles, to get a lot of the flowers in the foreground, and try to take focus away from the race parking lot in the background, as well as the occasional other runners heading back to their cars. That was hard, because we built up a bit of an audience before we were done.
So, round two. How did it stack up to the lessons I learned from the first time? Well, having enthusiastic models all around was a definite help. The fill flash made a huge difference, even though it was a bright sunny day and the EF 42 didn't really have enough power to fully balance the sunlight, it did help a lot. I didn't get to test the high angle idea, but the low angles worked pretty well. Overall I am very happy with round two, and if I can pull shots like these off with just the usual gear I carry in my car, can't wait for a chance to really pull out all the stops for another try at it.
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