When I was contacted to work with Scooter Ray I was thrilled. I’ve been wanting an opportunity like this for some time. These pieces in Scooter’s CORE clothing line was something really “futuristic” and “out of this world”. At first I was a little uneasy, but I knew with the skills I’ve collected over the past two months, I was confident I could capture something amazing, I just didn’t know what yet. Location for me is essential. I play with the surroundings and use my three speedlights to light up the environment. I went into this shoot with no location, but a ton of ideas. I thought of high-rise apartments, roofs, anything that had an open sky or “epic” backdrop to play with. I finally decided on the Patriots Peace Memorial about 2 minutes from my house. I’ve always wanted to do a shoot there, but wanted to save it for a band, that is until I got this opportunity. The problem was the light, around 9:00pm every night the HUGE halogen lights illuminate the building and from a flash lighting aspect, your screwed. For light painting I needed pitch black, so we had about an hour window. I know wanted a lot of blue and purple, “spacey” colors so I brought along a set of gels and really experimented. I wanted lens flares, bursts of light and more. I wanted light everywhere and anywhere. Sort like beautiful chaos. In the end it worked out perfectly. The lights in the building popped on at 8:45 about 10 seconds after the shutter closed on our last light painting shot. I also managed to do all of these shots using Nikon’s CLS system, which I learned that I will probably never use again, unless needed. Nevertheless, It was a great time and everyone on set worked hard for these captures. Thanks to my assistant Chris Miske. Scooter’s crew and the model Tayler. Wonderful people and great talent. All I do know is that it gave me experience and techniques that I will not soon forget. Looking forward to more shoots with Scooter Ray Designs.