The Ring of Power

[entropic remnants]

A buddy at work asked me to do something different for an engagement shoot. I suggested he let me write a story and shoot it in an abandoned textile mill and he pitched my outline to his fiance and she agreed.

So, I took a bunch of Aputure radio controls, 4 strobes, a lightweight travel tripod, my X-M1 and X-E1 and the Fujinon 23mm f/1.4 and 35mm f/1.4 and we snuck into the place. Everything fit in a large photo backpack.

We filmed almost everything in a completely dark industrial basement built in 1908 or so using flashlights for focus and posing, and radio controlled strobes (manually adjusted) for lighting. Here's some shots from it, and the video storybook I did from the images and some reprocessed images from my archives of the place I've photographed many times before. These are all done in 16x9 for the video and heavily processed for a "illustration" look.

I'll put these in the order they are for the story -- but only stuff I did for this shoot specifically. The others are in the video storybook mostly as establishing shots.

Here's the story outline:

• A man hears of a "ring of power" which can magically change his life and looks up an old man that knows how to find it.
• The ring is in a mysteriously abanonded city called "Old Town" that has sinister connotations. The ring has been hidden by someone there because it's "good".
• He and his fiance' find the way into Old Town's hidden secrets, and are drawn to the place where the ring it.
• The ring is sealed in an orb, which dissolves at his touch and transforms the world into a bright lovely place (Longwood Gardens, lol)
• They live happily ever after.

Willow and Bruce: Searching for the Ring of Power by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

Willow and Bruce: Searching for the Ring of Power by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

Willow and Bruce: Searching for the Ring of Power by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

Next is where we start filming in the dark basement with only strobes for lighting. One small, old Minolta strobe (from the 1980's, lol) is behind the doors for the glow and in the furnace reflecting off the rusted interior for the "cold fire" glow.

Who are they, why are they here, and WHAT is behind the doors?... by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

Willow and Bruce: Searching for the Ring of Power by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

Willow and Bruce: Searching for the Ring of Power by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

Willow and Bruce: Searching for the Ring of Power by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

Willow and Bruce: Searching for the Ring of Power by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

Willow and Bruce: The Orb by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

The "Orb" is a toy he has -- it's a ball which you can control from you iPhone and change the colors it glows and if you put it down, you can actually control its movement and roll it in different directions.

I'll leave out the Longwood Gardens shots as they are straight photography, but you can see how they look in the video if you like. It's here:

They had a blast and have something very different for their engagement, lol. I also did a print book for them which you can see here:

TheRingOfPower

 

[entropic remnants]

Wow, this sure flopped, lol.

This is pretty typical of where this board is: it's about hardware, and not about technique or actual photography. I've noticed that actual photo posts get far less response than talking about putting a 20th century lens on a 21st century camera, or drooling over the latest gear.

[Sigh]

I guess I expected somebody who actually takes pictures would ask about how I used the radio controlled flashes or whatever. I think I'm going to take another vacation from this board as it's still 95% gear talk, 5% actual photography.

Yes, I'm an old troll, lol.

 

[Lightmancer]

Jon, I feel your pain. It's frustrating sometimes to see so much energy absorbed by discussion on the next great tilt screen instead of photo appreciation.

For my part I enjoyed looking and recognise the work and skill involved, but the processing isn't to my taste and I struggled with the storyline, but what do I know? If the couple are happy that's the important thing.

 

[NkedFatWhiteGuy]

Thank you for sharing this shoot with us! I really enjoyed seeing the images and I really like the look and the storyboarding. I did not get a chance to look at the print book yet, but am very interested in doing so; I have been trying to find a good way to represent a storyline, or even just a chronology, through printed images and based on what you have done here, I expect yours to be very interesting!

I personally enjoyed the images on their own more then the video. After reading your post, I imagined the images in a comic book or graphic novel print form with "cells" laid out and the narrative overlaid or off to the side. Not in a scrapbooky kind of way, but with reinforcement of the style being brought out in the graphic layout of the storyline.

Thank you again for sharing, and I definitely appreciate the effort that you all pit in to create such an imaginative look and style!

 

[KillRamsey]

I just saw this. You know what a fan I am, and it has me wondering if you're going more "professional" and less "Hobbyist?" I sincerely hope so. On the one hand I start to say "I might've done X or Y sloghtly differently," and then i remember that I would NEVER have had the vision or cajones to produce anything like this in the first place... -chuckle-. I will say that doing these things with people who aren't actors or models is going to be a limitation to work around, which I'm guessing might've led to some of the back shots? I'm just imagining how hard it would be to pull this off, and my head is swimming.

 

[Biro]

I've been away a few days John and only saw this today. Great stuff.

 

[KillRamsey]

This thread has inspired me to finally go get a PC cord, so I can experiment with the 80's Sunpak flash and the XT1.