Category Finalist 2007: wings

Ray Demski

It was a day off for me, and my first day at the beach for the year. For equipment, I was going lightweight — I brought only a Nikon D200 body with 17/55 2.8 lens and polarizing filter, as well as four small Nikon speedlights. Everything went into one small bag with my towel and shorts.

About an hour before sundown, a large bank of clouds started moving in — perfect for photos! We got to work, visualising the lighting effect I wanted. I set my four flashes in the sand, pointed where Vasil would fly; I took some shots to get the light dialed, and then we got started. I asked Vasil to do a backflip — perfect! I got a beautiful shot of him tucked in a ball, midway through flipping, at the perfect moment, with him covering the sun. I decided to try a different shot, so I had him flip at a different angle, with his legs fully extended. I nailed this photo, “Gravity Experiments,” on the first try. We shot a few more frames before calling it quits and pulling out the power kites for some flying time.

Athlete: Vasil Tasevski
Location: Carnon Plage, France

TECHNICAL INFO

• Camera: Nikon D200
• Lens: Nikon 17–55 mm f/2.8 DX
• Focal length, digital: 17 mm
• Focal length, 35 mm: -
• ISO: 160
• F-stop: 5.6
• Shutter speed: 1/250
• Flash: 2 Nikon SB-600 speedlights, 2 Nikon SB-800 speedlights remotely triggered by built-in flash using Nikon CLS