This is an image that was shot for the 2011 - 2012 Fine Arts Calendar.
Casper College School of Fine Arts produces a promotional calendar to give to patrons and to highlight the different areas of the school. A majority of the time we use images of events that I have shot over the course of the year, but for the 11-12 year it was decided to use pots we created as the main focus.
In spring of 2011 I photographed the Spring Dance Show, Social Motion, and in the show there was a portion where a black-light and reflective paint and tape were used and the glow and feel really struck me. to the right is the a photo that I kept my interest and was the genesis for the glowing drummer.
So how does a glowing laptop and t-shirts turn into a glowing drummer?
At first the two had no relation whatsoever. I saw the way the laptop and t-shirts glowed and put it in my mental rolodex of "really cool ideas"
For the calendar one of the months would be featuring music. While brainstorming ideas I remembered seeing the Blue Man Group I knew that something like that would fit the theme of the calendar, but there were several challenges with a Blue Man Group type of shot. Destruction of a drum and paint flying everywhere were challenges that I could not see around, and furthermore, I believe in using things like that for inspiration, not just stealing them outright.
I had my idea, I wanted to make a drummer glow, using the black light, and the colors and instrument from Blue Man Group.
My planning started by contacting the stage manager to find out about the black light and the paint that were used. I discovered that it was one light and a special paint, also I was given the tip that the "striking tape" they used to place props would glow as well. He gave me several ends of rolls of the tape and allowed me to use what ever paint I wanted. The music department said I could use an older drum set, and found a student that would be the subject. Now just to do it.
Now to set up the shot my plan was to put the tape over anything that was chrome on the drums, giving them an outline and some form. I took several wood dowels and cut them to about the length of drumsticks and painted them using the special paint, and some glow-in-the-dark paint from a hobby store, I also painted several pieces of cardboard so I would have something to fill in the bass drum with. Using the dance photo I asked the model to bring both a black shirt and a white shirt.
The day of the photo, I set up on a stage with black curtains and used a black drop cloth on the floor. I set the black light directly in front of the drums and used a gridded strobe just to the right for a face light, the tripod supported camera was placed above black light.
The setup went fine but when we looked at the image on the back of the camera two major faults were found. One the white shirt was just to overpowering. I wanted the focus to be on the drums and the movement of the sticks. Two, the sticks were not visible. The painted dowels were not bright enough to be seen while moving.
The shirt was an easy fix, but the sicks were a little more of a challenge. After some discussion the graphic designer who happened to be along for the shoot was sent to a local dollar store to get some chemical glow sticks.
That was the solution. Using different colors and different speeds of the drummers movement, and shutter speeds as well. We discovered that after about three to five minutes the novelty glow sticks would loose enough brightness that they could not bee seen very well.
In the end I got what I saw in my minds eye, and I'm proud of the results. In the finished photo there is very little Photoshop. I had to tone down the center disk some and adjusted the levels some to provide some balance, but that is the extent of it.
The other photos are some more from the shoot, you can see the super glow from the white shirt and, the two different discs we used in the bass drum. You can also see how the movements of the drummer changed the feeling of the photo. Some of theses outtakes are I really like. For example, the two photos on the left, the top one where the light from the sticks is very vertical, but still does not cover his face, while the bottom one was near the end of the shoot when we took all the sticks we had and bundled them together to try and get just one rainbow frame.
What did I learn? That theater black lights get very hot. Glow sticks work great, and if I were to do it again, use military grade 12 hour ones.
Canon 1D Mark IV, ISO 200, f/20, 6 sec.