--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Early in 2016 I sat down with art director Elroy Klee & cinematographer Erik Journée from NEW DAY studio to come up with a concept for this year’s Red Bull Illume. After pitching different ideas at each other we quickly agreed to try shooting something with mirrors. Instead of a street spot we decided to go indoors, but not to a typical skatepark. We contacted the guys at skatepark Pier 15 in Breda (The Netherlands). This skatepark is more like an indoor ‘street spot’, with concrete ramps, curbs and stairs. We knew this would fit the image we had in mind.
We started cutting mirrors in our studio into different (small and large) shapes and tested them to see how big they needed to be to see the trick and different parts of the obstacle. We opted for triangle shaped mirrors to complement the obstacles in the background, to create a clean, even balanced look. Almost 12 mirrors later we finally had the pieces that would fit the picture. We headed out to Pier 15 together with Dutch skateboarder Rob Maatman. A couple of c-stands were used to angle the mirrors in a way that they almost looked like a puzzle; connect all the pieces and you see the entire obstacle. The outcome is a balanced action picture combined with graphic pieces and skatepark objects.
My weapon of choice was a Mamiya 645DF+ with a Leaf Credo 40 digital back and a Schneider LS 28mm F4.5 lens. Rob was lit by four different lights: a Broncolor Para 88 as the main light, a large 2x2m scrim with two lights behind them as extra fill for the main light and a large stripbox boomed above him as a top/rim light. The camera was tethered directly to my laptop via Capture One and the flashes were triggered by Pocketwizard Plus III’s. The camera settings were: 1/80 - F9 - ISO100.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FINAL IMAGE
CLOSE-UP
BEHIND THE SCENES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
