Sometimes a shoot comes along that carries with it a lot of risk. Not that every shoot doesn’t have an element of unknown, it’s just that you can usually narrow in on it. Sort of level it out by the time you are ready to shoot (of course, that is, bearing in mind you are given enough time to prepare, which is probably another story altogether). But there are certain shoots that just have elements that all the preparation in the world isn’t going to reduce the risk.

I had one of those this weekend.

A perfect storm so to speak…first off this one was contingent on the weather, and not just a day of shooting, but a large scale effort with several ships coordinating with a crew on land. There would need to be five days of weather where there were no more then 2 foot swells at sea. You might ask what’s the big deal with that…well try and keep a good photographer on hold when day by day, even at times, hour by hour the shoot is getting moved and rearranged, and starting and stopping. The good photographers tend to be busy. You really begin to test the patience and good will of not only the photographer, but in this case the helicopter crew as well. That’s right, this one had to be shot from the air.

Of course shooting things from the air, adds a bit of difficulty…not only is it too expensive to stay in the air and shoot for hours, but it is also very difficult to line up a pilot who has the insight in order to understand flying for photography. A lot of pilots are more of the here to there mindset. But with a shoot like this, you need to be able to provide the photographer with as many unique angles and looks as possible within a very short window. Not to mention have a skill to keep things steady, sometimes in strong winds. Not the easiest job.

Now add to that and make the photographer shoot something that’s on water. So not only is the photographer hanging out the window of a moving object a couple hundred feet off the ground, the object he’s shooting is moving up and down on water and forward and backwards as it positions itself. No big deal right? Well, that often requires the photographer to shoot at really fast shutter speeds like around a 1/1000 of a second. Not a lot of time to let in light, and lighting a 10 mile square area is pretty much out of the question. So you start cranking the ISO, which starts to add noise to the photos, and then you start to get quality issues. The only solution to this is a photographer who has good equipment, and has used it time and time again.

Unfortunately, when shooting in this type of scenario, good weather means a lot of things. Low wind, the right clouds, as no clouds makes the scene a bit boring, but too low of clouds or too many also make things a bit flat, then you also have your fingers crossed for air quality, which is a combination of wind and temperature and time of year. Then all this needs to line up in an hour or so window, that has to be predicted well in advance. The operation that we were shooting was several hundred million dollars in scope, and needed to be captured once–there would be no reshoot. So months and months of work by the client leads up to this tiny window of opportunity for us to capture this operation in an appealing way.

Well, a ton of thanks is due to a bunch people for the help they contributed, it looks like the skies opened up (literally), and we pulled it off. I have to tip my hat to the helicopter company receptionist, who time after time was understanding about my scheduling and rescheduling at all times of day. The photographer for moving things around to accommodate all the last minute changes, and their professionalism with getting me as much material to work with as possible. Then there is the helicopter pilot, who made a great flight pattern to help the photographer capture an abundant variety of imagery, while getting everyone back to shore safe and sound. Also, a special thanks to all the contacts on the boat who helped line up permissions, and kept in touch with me as things were going hour to hour, when I’m sure they had lots of other duties to take care of besides making sure the producer of the photography was kept up to speed.

Now the imagery is in post’s hands, and it’s up to them to take this that extra mile. I trust their skills, so I really think the pictures will turn out fantastic. I guess I got lucky on this one, considering all that was involved, and the shear mass of opportunity for something to go amuck. You can’t always reduce the risk, but when you get away with a good shoot, it does help build confidence. ‘Cause if you pull it off once, they will usually come back for more. As they say, ‘a lucky producer is a good producer.’