It's fascinating how various areas of expertise in different types of photography will, sooner or later, become a useful skill for a still photographer working in the film industry. Our duties can span from capturing key moments of a set scene, to documenting candid and unscripted happenings behind the cameras; from shooting plates of empty sets, to taking portraits of actors or photos of props for the art department. Event photography, photo journalism, landscape, portrait and still life photography comes to mind!

Having worked on TNT's Claws as a unit still photographer, I was contacted by Art Director Jeremy Woolsey (Hidden Figures) to shoot yet another project that required a skill I already had acquired in a recent past: panoramic photography. Huge panoramic photos were needed to be used a stage backing aka a translight for TNT’s Claws sets. I have been actively taking QTVR interactive panoramas at 360 degrees since 2000 and the challenging request sure sparked my interest! So over the next week I shot a few different panos ( 29 shots stitched together) resulting in the shown 15' x 117' translight backdrop.

( shot with a Canon 5DSr about 1.7 gig file)

Click here to see more translights

Iphone shot of another translight on another stage on TNT’s Claws.

iPhone snap taken before stretching and lighting of the backing. The translight is 15'x117' and wraps around the whole set).