P#42: A Powerful Image of Oil and Gas Pipelines

Consult Your Compass

David Tejada: This is for another oil and gas company, shooting with available light for sure. I didn't light the sunrise. One of the tools I use quite a bit is a compass. I use the Internet a lot too to scout locations but I use a compass and I use a program called Mica. This information from Mica is now available. It's no longer a software. I think you can still buy the software but the information is available online anyhow.

It's the location of the sun, the time of the sunrise, when civil twilight begins and when it ends, and what's most important with the program is to know the exact compass declination, where it's coming up on the horizon. Is it coming up at 86 degrees or setting at 240 degrees?

If I know exactly where that sun is setting, I plug in my longitude and latitude of the city that I'm shooting in, and that will tell me exactly where on the horizon that sun is going to set. Scouting this location during the day, seeing this, thinking, "Well, I think this is directly," actually, this was sunrise. I was there the day before. (click the image for a larger version)

I said, "This pipeline looks like it's right east. Let me just see what tomorrow's date is." I looked it up, looked at the compass, and said, "Bingo, this is my shot. This is a killer shot right here." That's my assistant at the end of the pipeline in fully silhouette. I shot him left, shot him right, shot it horizontal, shot more sky, less sky.

When I photograph, I'm changing all sorts of different compositions in order to incorporate the possibilities for my client to place copy or other graphics within the photograph so I am trying to do my reshoot at the time that I'm shooting so I don't have to come back and do it.

Most often I'm on my own. I'm not traveling with an art director. It's usually myself and my assistant because people realize after so many years that I've been doing that that I'm really pretty much either a graphic designer or an art director with a camera. I usually cover myself pretty darn well visually so that I give my clients plenty of choices. That's one of the things that clients are looking for. Think about that.

Audri Lanford: Sure. What are the two things on the top?

David Tejada: Those are propane cylinder tanks.

Audri Lanford: Ah, okay.

David Tejada: As a matter of fact, there's one image that you didn't select out of the few that I sent you -- I think I sent you 50. I do a lot of oil and gas. Eric, my assistant, is in this one shot where he's wearing a red fleece, a green fleece -- I carry different colored clothing with me on my shoots because sometimes people don't know quite how to dress on the job.

If I could just digress for one second, I was photographing a survey crew somewhere and this gentleman that I was photographing leaned forward to look through his survey tool. As he did, his vest parted and I saw Bart Simpson strangling Saddam Hussein around the neck. It's not the kind of picture you want to put in an annual report.

Number one, it dates the image, and it just doesn't look very professional so ever since that time, I've started carrying clothing with me. During the summer months, I'll carry primary colored t-shirts with me which I can put on people.

During the winter months, I'll carry fleeces so if I'm in a situation where I want to add a little color, just put on that particular fleece and now we're crafting the picture to be something more than what it was.

In Closing

It's amazing how far a bit of research can take you. As David demonstrates, the angle of the rising sun is what makes this shot of oil and gas pipelines.