Burning Boots :: February 9th, 2010
McKay’s Photography once again worked with Gregory Fair to produce some art for his newest musical venture with Ben Proctor, The Burning Boots Band. Greg found some awesome cowboy boots with orange flames for burning at dawn….
The perfect location for this idea was an old railroad track with steel beams, typical from the last century and a favorite visual of mine in NY State. As for the images, I was really looking to do something outside the box and return to my own roots of Fine Art Photography. This photo shoot reminded me of the antics I regularly constructed while attending RIT, including breakfast afterward at Jay’s Diner!
The alarm clock was set for the first time in a long time and 5:30 came early. With a strong cup of coffee in hand, Greg Fair and Aaron Maras picked me up and became my assistants. We drove around a few of the spots I had in mind until I found just what I was visualizing. With not too much darkness left, I jumped right in and directed Aaron with my Nikon Speedlight as a filler and Greg as prop-master extraordinaire! Some quick metering and camera adjusting to get just the right look and feel and then it was nearing time to burn the boots.
Lucky for me, the boots actually didn’t burn as quickly as I imagined! The dawn light was nice and slow and so were the flames. I took the shot that I had visualized, and then had a minute or two to play with some other angles. My goal with these images is to hopefully find something worthy of a Competition Print with the Professional Photographers of America.
Anyway, without further ado, here are a few images from this photographic essay on old-time music…
