Rangefinder Magazine
April 2005

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Rf Cookbook by Nyx “Nick” Cangemi
Mardi Gras Security Patrol

As a photographer for the U.S. Coast Guard, I often find myself in many different places with a varying array of shooting conditions. One day I may be shooting on a patrol boat in the Gulf of Mexico, on another I’ll be hanging out of a helicopter. Each assignment is unique with its own set of challenges. On this particular assignment, I was to photograph a joint operation between the Coast Guard and the New Orleans Police Department during a Mardi Gras security patrol.

In shooting this photograph, I encountered many obstacles. As a passenger in the helicopter, I was required to wear a flight helmet (which made looking through the viewfinder a challenge) and a “gunner’s belt,” which is essentially a safety harness that is strapped around me and attached to the floor of the helicopter. With a total of five people in the helicopter, sharing the same amount of floor space as a twin-sized mattress, trying to find alternate angles to shoot from was next to impossible. Shooting positions were carefully planned out, for they could not interfere with the overall operation.

As the helicopter circled around a city littered with high-rise office buildings and hotels, the lowest altitude at which we could safely fly was 200 feet, making any element on the ground a minor feature in the photo. In order to compensate, I decided to make the police officer the dominant element in the photo. In addition, lighting conditions were constantly changing, as did the scenery on the ground, since the helicopter was in constant motion. The solution was simple—expose for the highlights, use a touch of off-camera flash to fill the interior, and only shoot when the helicopter was facing away from the sun.

Once I decided how I wanted to compose the shot and my camera was set, I simply waited for a recognizable element on the ground below to enter the scene.

In post-production with an Apple G5, I adjusted Levels in Photoshop CS to color correct the image and applied Unsharp Mask (30 percent, 2.0 pixel radius, 0 threshold).

INGREDIENTS
• Camera: Nikon D1X (in-camera metering, pattern mode)
• Lens: Nikkor 12–24mm f/4G ED-IF AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor with 77mm U/V filter
• Strobe: Nikon SB-800 Speedlight (-2/3, 2–18 feet, AA)
• Flash Accessories: Sto-Fen Omni bounce
• Other: SC-28 off-camera sync cord
• Settings: ISO 200, f/10 at 1/250, manual mode, cloudy white balance