After managing to criss-cross the county numerous times, I racked up over 700 miles on my Honda Element and shot over 1200 pictures. Which I now have to caption and ship before I leave for my next trip on Tuesday.
Randolph County is known for a lot of things: It is home to NASCAR Legend Richard Petty and the North Carolina Zoo. But probably is best know for its pottery.
The little town of Seagrove, about 15 minutes south of Asheboro, is the self-proclaimed “Pottery Capital of the World.” It has a history rich in pottery dating back over 200 years and about 100 potters now call Seagrove home.
One of those potters is Daniel Johnston.
Daniel works just outside of the Seagrove city limits, in a small log cabin that’s taken him about six years to build. He turns his large jugs on the dirt floor and moves them to his two kilns just outside. The larger kiln measures about 35 feet and can reach temperatures over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, with firings lasting about four days.
My first shot was the cabin. I wasn’t sure if it was going to look best at sunrise or sunset. Since I am definitely not a morning person, I headed out to Daniel’s about 6pm to try a sunset shot. The cabin is loaded with light. But just as a precaution, I busted out four Canon 580’s with Pocket Wizard Flex’s and placed them throughout the cabin. I split the four lights between the two floors of the cabin: two upstairs and two downstairs, with one of the downstair lights pointing straight out the door.
I waited patiently as the sun slowly set and shot a few test frames just to make sure the remote lights were firing.
One thing I started to notice was the outside of the cabin just appeared flat. And as the sun set further, the outside of the cabin fell deeper and deeper into the darkness.
As twilight approached, my exposures were getting longer and longer. I ended up shooting a 30 second exposure for the picture.
You can do a lot in 30 seconds.
In the back of my car, I happened to have a spotlight. I pulled it out and decided to give light painting a try. As I tripped the camera, the flashes fired and I went to work on the outside of the cabin for 30 seconds.
In the end, the pictures I light painted turned out to be the best. The cabin just popped with the twilight sky.
One picture down and now I didn’t have to get up in the wee hours of the morning to shoot the sunrise.
My next picture was a portrait of Daniel, but that was going to have to wait until morning. Maybe mid-morning after some caffeine.
I knew right away where I wanted to shoot Daniel. It had to be in front of the mammoth kiln that he uses to fire his large jugs.
In my mind, I went through the lighting scheme for the portrait. I’d put one light in the kiln with a full CTO gel, two lights positioned opposite each other on the sides of the kiln and illuminating the tin roof and one snooted light hitting Daniel. All of the lights would be on Pocket Wizard Flex’s.
In a perfect world, all would go right.
Unfortunately, it isn’t a perfect world. Lucky for me Daniel was very patient.
Before shooting, I noticed I needed more light in the kiln, so I placed the light I had earmarked for Daniel into the kiln, shooting back toward me and rim lighting the doorway.
Luckily I had my Dyna-Lite Uni 400’s in the car. I pulled one out, along with a grid spot, and aimed it toward Daniel.
Now, we’re cooking with gas!
Not quite. And this is where patience comes into play.
Of the 44 pictures I took of Daniel, I only managed to get six frames where all five lights fired. Most of the time it was four, sometimes just three, all the way down to one. The Dyna-Lite fired every time. Of course it was about five feet from me. The rest were 10-15 feet away.
It was a frustrating week for me and my Pocket Wizards. Sometimes they all worked. But most of the time they were just sporadic. There was no rhyme or reason. If the wind changed, it seemed like it affected whether or not they would work. After one frustrating shoot this week, I drove straight to my hotel room, got on my computer and ordered a set of Radio Poppers. Even had them shipped overnight I was that desperate.
They get here Monday, just in time for my next trip.
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