Fire in Phoenix

Originally uploaded by John Groseclose

While doing a documentary/assistant shoot with Dan Coogan, a lightning-caused wildfire started down south of Phoenix.

It did interesting things to the light.

Over the course of the shoot, we’d been firing small battery-powered strobes like the Nikon SB-28 and SB-800, using large softboxes, bounce reflectors, and Dyna-Lite pack/head systems.

In the end, my favorite shot of the day used no lighting modifiers other than the huge cloud of smoke from the wildfire. So, if I wanted to recreate the lighting conditions, I’d have one heck of a carbon footprint…

Some other photos of the fire, and lightning from the storm rolling in from the southeast:

All in all a good shooting day.