Dan Murphy

This photo is from the first roll of film I put through my newly acquired Bronica Sq-a.  I was taking pictures for a game of s.k.a.t.e at school, when professional skateboarder Dan Murphy arrived.  He is usually always out there in the evenings skating at the "flatspot" but I have never gotten the nerve to ask him for photos before. But he didn't mind and I quickly set up and took some of this crooked grind outside the c-store on campus.  The tricky part with the waist level viewfinder on this camera is that it has no meter.  I had to meter with my 5d and then take the shot with the Bronica.  It also turns out I forgot to put the battery in the camera, so it was only able to shoot on 1/500th of a second.  After realizing this, I had to run back to my gear and find the battery so I could shoot at 1/250th of a second since he was in the shade and it was getting pretty dark... I ended up having the roll of film push processed a half stop to be sure they weren't underexposed and it caused them to be a bit washed out. 

The other tricky part was timing. I could have taken this a second earlier when he was fully on the bench but I've been working on it with the 5d so I'll be ready next time!  I can't wait to get a light meter though and possibly a flash so I can really expand my possibilities to shoot skateboarding with this camera.