Category Finalist 2007: sequence
Wade McKoy
As always, my shooting schedule revolves around the weather and the athlete’s plans. When Jamie called and told me he was going to do this 250-foot jump that we’d been scoping for several years, I started imagining the scene. I knew there would be other photographers shooting it — one with the film crew, and one who was traveling with Jamie. That’s a good thing on something of this nature, a superhuman feat. The more angles and the more captures, the better for the athlete. But too many is not so good for the photographers.
It’s a good thing it was a “closed set” (or what amounted to that — the crew showed up on site before anyone else was around), because even so, there were five photographers shooting it, which is a few too many for the photographers’ sake. But there were at least four angles on this thing; luckily for me, the one I picked that day is the same one most photo editors also picked. My shot has been published by 14 magazines all over the world, including the Guinness Book of World Records. Jamie’s leap, and my pictures of it, really made an impression.
Athlete: Jamie Pierre
Location: Grand Targhee, WY, USA
TECHNICAL INFO
- Camera One: Canon EOS-1D Mark IIN; Camera Two: Canon EOS-1V
- Lens: Camera One: EF 28–70 mm 2.8L; Camera Two: EF 300 mm 4L
- Film: Fujichrome Provia 100
- Focal length, digital: Camera One: 38 mm (49.4 mm with 1.3 camera factor)
- ISO: Camera One: 100
- F-stop: Camera One: 3.5; Camera Two: 4.0
- Shutter speed: Camera One: 1/1000; Camera Two: 1/800
- White balance: Automatic, adjusted to 6250K to match reality
- Process: For this world-record ski jump, I used two cameras: The master image comes from Camera One fired remotely from a tripod. The series you see in the picture comes from Camera Two, shot on film with the 300 mm lens at about six frames per second.
