Featured Contributor: Gabe Hopkins
Midwestern photographer, Gabe Hopkins is known for his spectacular attention to detail. He is his own worst critic when it comes to scrutinizing every aspect of of his projects.
Gabe is a diversephotographer in the respect that he shoots a wide range of work. Varying fromfood to agriculture and conceptual; these genres reflect his versatility andcreative vision. He believes that his ability to shoot different genres pairedwith his ability to remain flexible is what has given many of his clients a successfuland enjoyable experience. Hopkins was kind enough to share with us, his experienceworking with Merck Animal Health.
“I was approached by an advertising agency working with Merck Animal Health. The product they were advertising worked faster than their competitors. To start, they asked me to estimate a rough layout that they had produced. The look they were going for was an image of a drag racer taking off from the starting line; speed, with a little bit of motion. It was important to find the right model. Luckily, we found a professional, female drag racer that would be able to handle the job while staying safe.
Three days before the photo shoot it snowed on the track so we had to use a rake to get rid the snow in the grass; some snow blowing was involved as well. We set up a four sided tent with heaters for the clients, crock pots full of potato soup, and hot chocolate. It was 32 degrees outside with 10-15 mile an hour winds, however, with the wind-chill it felt like 23 degrees.
Around noon on he day of the shoot,we began setting up the tent for the clients on the track and grass. We wanted to make sure they were comfortable, warm, and happy. We pulled out the bike and started getting the generators going so we could pop some fill light on the shadow side of the bike. While we were doing this, the clouds started rolling in. Very soft, wispy clouds that really helped bring this image to life.
Other concerns we had because of the cold weather were that the tires of the race bike would break loose and send the racer out of control. As you can imagine, we didn’t want to have her take off the line to many times. We ended up getting this very quickly and the softer clouds lowered the contrast ratio to really help capture the detail of the bike, and the speed of her coming off the starting line.
We captured the final images about an hour before sunset. We wrapped up and had sandwiches and hot chocolate to celebrate the production.”
To view more work by Gabe, visit his site.