The "Inflate-Deflate" project has been a very long-running, experimental series of images for me (Ben) since Uni... in fact the first shot of the project was taken a slightly-alarming 13 years ago. The basic premise through various different shoots has been to create eye-catching images (mostly abstracts) using creatively-lit inflatable toys. It has been a pretty successful project, various incarnations of it have been exhibited in galleries in The North, it has been a self-published book, and has opened various avenues to explore in other shoots.
One of the earliest ambitions with the project was to shoot on location and take the techniques from the studio shoot (single light source, backlit toys) and try it on a real beach. I managed some test shots last November after a few abandoned attempts in recent years, but was somewhat limited in the 2016 go by both the nature of trying the techniques for the first time, and also the limited lights and the few toys available (mostly scrounged from seaside shops... October/November not being a terrific time to try and buy beach goods in the UK).
Happily Easter 2017 looked like it would provide more opportunity to reshoot on a couple of nights (and this would be the last chance until the tail end of the year, given the nights were drawing out), given we'd be in Wales for a fortnight, so this time more lights were packed, and I ransacked the props boxes for as many of the surviving toys from the earlier shoots as I could find...
By the way, just to be warned, this is going to be another wordy blog post, simply because every now and again we like to give a detailed explanation of what goes into these big shoots... too often photographs seem to just happen as if by magic, and people (particularly non-photographers we talk to) don't realise how much goes into getting a picture. It isn't just 'there's a nice thing, iPhone out, snap, I'm famous'.
I decided to use the same beach as last year at Llanbedrog, as it was out of the way of civilisation, had close road access to the shoreline, and was known to me, and probably wouldn't have the gangs of drunken teenagers which my first choice near Harlech possessed in droves the last few visits for shoots. Of course shooting pics on the Thursday before the Easter Holidays wasn't ideal, but the weather was likely to be on my side for the only time in the next few days and Amy wouldn't have to look after The Childs on their own, so I set off.
The roads were HEAVING and I missed the turning, had to double back and back again... and found a highly creepy abandoned car in the end of the road. Proper old knacker with the back seats stripped out, toolbox, blankets and worryingly, rope, in the back. All very creepy and a bit serial-killer-y.
Then I spotted I'd been followed in by another car, which I thought at first was a police car. Wondering how I was going to explain the concept of the shoot at taser-point, I then realised it wasn't a police car, but the driver was sat watching me nonetheless with all his lights off. So I was stood in a layby in the dark in the middle of nowhere, in scruffy clothes (I don't exactly dress in shirt and tie for a shoot in the middle of the night on a beach), thinking I may have accidently stumbled into the number one dogging spot for the Llyn Peninsular.
So I decided sod it and decided to just crack on with at least a test shot. I hadn't come all the way out here to freak out and drive off, and in any case I figured a camera tripod could do a fair bit of damage if swung at some perverts skull, so I hit the beach. Where I found the next problem, which was the tide was in. Knowing I'd have to wait it out, I got out the pump and inflated one toy to test the environs, whilst fighting off the paranoia that someone was watching me. Deciding I'd just crack on with the full projected shoot, and returning to the car after half an hour to grab the rest of the props, I noticed the creepy cars had both gone, meaning that almost certainly some weird person with an old car full of tools and dirty blankets and ropes HAD been watching me. Shudder. Obviously I was too tall for his wicker man or too long to fit in his boot.
Returning to the beach, and deciding I ought to shoot the damn pics after all, I found the sea lapping around the legs of the tripod, and the ball floating away. Goodie, the tide hadn't finished coming in after all. A quick paddle and a desperate shifting of the gear up onto the rocks later I wasn't in the best mood. Still, I decided I'd use the opportunity to sort the toys out for the shoot. Last year I inflated and deflated the toys as I went along, which meant I had to keep inflating more or re-inflating them as new combinations for shots presented themselves. This year I decided in one back-breaking hour with a rubbish pump I would just inflate them all (planning again... I bought a rather super-quality pump, then managed to leave it in Yorkshire, so bought a somewhat inferior one in Wales the morning of the shoot).
Some dozen rings, about 15 beach balls of various sizes, two lilos and a whale. Almost all props from the earliest shoots, and some like the whale have been used in about five different projects. At this stage I've stopped my usual trick of wondering what 'normal' people and even 'normal' photographers are up to whilst I'm doing this sort of thing, and just accept and live with the fact I'm an art-photographer...
The toys as placed on the sand...
...and lit. Learning from the test shoot, this time I'd wrapped the LED torches and push-lights in sandwich bags to seal them against the corrosive effects of salt water and sand.
Exposure times were also an issue, given the slightly odd lighting of the location, very little ambient light earlier on in the night.
I tried to get some shots with the toys nearer the water, which kind of worked, though the toys did end up moving around too much apart from the whale, which was stable enough to stay put because of the shape. It did keep deflating though because a previous model on a fashion shoot hadn't been too gentle with it, so it didn't get much use after these early shots and was just thrown up onto the rocks where it wouldn't blow away.
One pic I really wanted to do was this one, which involved every light, and all the rings... one thing I hadn't noticed until afterwards and the toys had been chucked back on the rocks was the fine mist of salt-spray from the sea which had covered the lens, giving a slightly trippy, 70's soft-focus-disco effect, which I kind of like. And I couldn't be bothered setting it all up again.
I did though do some shots with individual toys, such as these rings, bought new for the shoot.
Another shot I wanted was one using as many of the beach balls as possible scattered randomly around the shoreline and rocks, again using every light. This is where the night started to get a bit wearing... Lots of back and forth seeing how lights looked when viewed through the camera, and having to carefully arrange the shingle to balance the toys.
Finally the composition was worked out that I wanted...
Another major problem which arose at this point was that a very slight breeze had picked up, which meant that as fast as I was repositioning toys they were rolling away. Any slight movement also ruined the shot, blurring the toys. For some reason that big polkadot, multi-coloured ball on the right (one of the three new toys bought for the shoot) was the main culprit for rolling away, and after the fourth time I'd waded into the sea up to my knees to retrieve it I was about ready to burst the damned thing then and there, but grudgingly decided it was too nice a prop to just waste.
Tired and fed up as I was, I decided to do some messing-about shots with crash zooms just to see how things looked.
By now, because of the hour setting-up and also having to wait for the tide to drop, it was after midnight, and I started letting the toys down... before deciding that with only a very slight breeze, a clear sky, and nobody about, this might be the only chance to shoot the pics this holiday. So screw the planned second shoot, I better just stay put and take photographs for as long as it took and do it all in one go. The above shot was just me randomly putting a torch behind one of the toys which I'd thrown up on the rocks to stop them blowing away into the sea.
This was another one from the test shoot I wanted to redo, having to wait until the tide had dropped enough to expose the rockpools. Last time it got scrubbed because the sea salt had misted the lens, this time it worked better... though only with constant cleaning of the lens, and me forcing myself through the tiredness barrier.
Though there were still problems with the breeze.
The final shots were down on the edge of the sea, making the most of the reflections in the wet sand... at this point problems aplenty started rearing their heads. The breeze was picking up, and of course unless the beachballs were perfectly positioned they moved as well, floating around in the water.
I was determined to get this shot though. This is one of the oldest props I still possess from the early days of the project... this giant beach ball is something of an iconic prop for people who do certain styles of summer-themed fashion shoots because of the design (out of production for 12 years or so), and there is a surprising market for older inflatables like this through eBay and the like. It is also notably bigger and better made (with smaller warning labels, the bane of this project as they ruin photos) than equivalent toys now.
This was also something of an iconic prop in the earlier "Inflate-Deflate" shoots and also in later ones like "Happygoth", though I hadn't used it since the last Goth shoot about 6-7 years back... and so only discovered out on location now that during that fashion shoot the combination of an inflatable toy, a model sitting/laying on it, and spiky goth jewellery might not be a good combination, and at some point in the shoot she had accidentally popped it and the ball had started to go flat over the course of the night. Not a massive hole, but I didn't have any tape which wouldn't show up in the photos so kept having to re-inflate the toy every few minutes which was a pain.
The shot which called time on the project, that damned polka dot-coloured ball again which once again seemed most susceptible to blowing away. After the eighth time of the night I'd waded out to get it (it wouldn't stay still in the pics, with the wind picking up, and that is me caught on the timer-shot above running to catch it) I decided enough was enough and at half 2 in the morning it was time to pack up and go.
That said, even though I was knackered (though glad I'd got a ton of photographs I was happy with) I couldn't just up and leave. And tempting as it would have been to just speedily leave by popping everything I didn't want to waste the props, so spent a boring 40 mins letting the air out of all the toys, salvaging the lights, packing up gear, before the four or five trips needed to shift it to the car. The planned shoot for "Pretty Vacant" was also abandoned (see the last blog post for info on that one) because I could feel myself getting tired and still needed to drive home.
Summing up? A long bloody night, it was about 8pm Thursday when I set off, and 3.40am Friday when I got back. I'd ruined about five of the lights, slightly-knackered with sand the camera tripod, and was soaked from the knees down from a bit of nocturnal paddling... but on the positive side taken a load of photos which I was happy with, and aside from the stripey giant beach ball, and the whale, which had pre-existing damage, hadn't destroyed any props or lost any into the sea in the end. And really positively, hadn't been murdered by strange people with filthy cars full of mysterious tools and ropes and things. Bonus. So far pics from this new series have been entered into a couple of open calls, and a bigger selection is planned for a possible opportunity later in the year, so fingers crossed...
It also occurs to me that given we have three Childs now, and less time to shoot (especially after dark), four out of the five of the projects me and Amy have done recently have been night shoots. We must have a slightly masochistic streak for being out taking photos in the middle of nowhere at 2am...
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