Krazy, Krazy, Krazy, Krazy life...

This particular flavour of Krazy comes courtesy of the Lakeland Climbing Centre in Kendal, one of the UK's biggest and best indoor climbing walls, which just happens to be local to me.
They recently approached me about some photography of their new Krazy Climb facility for kids and me, being related to the man from Del Monte, say yes. However there's a catch - no budget, having emptied the piggy bank actually installing this great new climbing wall. Now let me be clear here. LCC asked me because they are friends of mine and know me well enough to beg a favour, however...There are two schools of thought when it comes to dealing with this kind of situation.  In school 1, photographers take a knee jerk position and say "Bugger off, I'm a professional, that means I make my living doing this, that means I get paid!" Whilst school 2 says "well, OK, let me think about this for a minute, what opportunities might this open up for the both of us?"

I'm school 2. I look at this and think, well maybe we can barter a bit, do a bit of horse trading, make some friends and store up some browny points. What's this actually going to cost me to do? What do I stand to gain if I say yes, what additional openings might this lead to? Do I have the spare time and energy (creative and physical) to fit this in without making problems for myself? If the answer to all or most of those questions is a positive one, then fine, I'll do my best to help out.

When I added up the pros here, it came out like this; I got a free entry pass for a year for myself and my 10 year old son, so every time its a rainy, dull weekend we go meet some friends at the wall instead of slumping in front of the X-box. I can use the shoot as practice to try out some creative lighting and to that end I invited along a young aspiring photographer I've been mentoring, to act as a lighting assistant - Damian Kane; check his website at www.damiankane.com - and while I'm at the shoot, I just happen to bump into the wall-builder from King Kong Walls, also an old acquaintance, who expresses an interest in hiring me to shoot some of his other installations. Now, can you spot any really negative stuff in there? Nope, me neither. Actually we had a lot of fun, shared the love and made some new friends. OK, we didn't get paid on this one but I had some free time and I suspect this one will pay us back in the long run. I think I prefer school 2 to school 1.

On this shot; I shot from an abseil rope to one side, Damian had a Nikon SB800 through a Lastolite SoftBox and 1/4 cut CTO to camera right, held up an a long boom arm for height.

This shot; Nikon D700 with 28-300mm ED VR lens, SB800 and Lastolite soft box on a boom arm held high overhead. A special mention for that background in pink and red. One of my golden rules is "Backgrounds ruin pictures - so pick them carefully, pay full attention", all I needed was a kid in a pink fleece; do we have one of those? Crikey, yes we do!

See that lighting? Nice mix of shadows and highlights, makes it look more interesting. Nikon SB800 through the Lastolite Softbox on a pole, plus some ambient daylight.