Keith Ladzinski is no stranger to the power of off-camera lighting. In fact, he credits his flash savvy, honed through his stint as a skateboarding photographer, with helping his images stand out among his landscape and action-sports peers.
Always looking to push the envelope, Ladzinski had the idea to mount Speedlights to an aerial platform several years before he actually had a chance to realize the vision, in the fall of 2015. It was only when Nikon presented him with the then-new radio-controlled SB-5000 AF Speedlight that Ladzinski’s mind returned to his earlier aerial musings.
From a technical standpoint, it was the perfect time to attempt a drone-lighting shoot, Ladzinski says. Drone technology had matured to the point of not needing an unwieldy helicopter for aerial lighting. Meanwhile, the SB-5000 Speedlights brought radio control into the Nikon flash family, allowing them to be triggered without being in line-of-sight of a transmitter, like optical systems require. At just shy of a pound, the SB-5000s were also lightweight enough that the team could mount two to a drone without sending it hurtling toward the Earth (a battery-powered monolight, for example, would weigh about six pounds). “That weight difference is substantial when you’re bolting them onto a drone,” Ladzinski says.
With the technology in place, Ladzinski set out to pull off a one-of-a-kind shoot photographing a pair of climbers as they descended France’s Verdon Gorge, also known as Europe’s Grand Canyon. The climbers would also be photographed highlining, the mountaineering equivalent of a tightrope walk (only cooler). Read the full article in the free Fall 2018 edition of PDNedu to learn how he pulled it off.
—Interview and article by Greg Scoblete
Photo © Keith Ladzinski
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