A shovel ready photo shoot.
As photo assignments go, this sounded great: “Drive an hour from Fort Collins to Boulder to shoot the first LEED Platinum home.” Cool.
I scheduled to meet the real estate agent, Jen, at 9AM — a time, according to my iPhone app, would put the sun at a beautiful elevation of 15-degrees (which, strangely enough, turned out to be the temperature that morning).
The forecast was for a slight chance of light snow, so I gave myself an extra 30 minutes just in case things were a bit slow. Halfway there it got a bit slow. A few minutes later, a bit glacial.
The last 15 miles took 90 minutes — which seemed inappropriately slow until I slammed on the brakes and only barely avoided the car in front of me. 5MPH was a reasonable speed limit.
In Boulder, the slight chance of light snow had covered the lawns a foot-and-a-half deep. But the roads were drivable — and the home was just a few blocks from downtown. Nearing my destination, I made the mistake of slowing down from 10 to 5MPH to find a street sign to read. I high-centered my high-mileage, low-clearance platinum-colored Honda Insight hybrid in 1 foot of uncleared snow.
Some friendly looking neighbors came over with their snow shovels enthusiastically in hand and quickly summed up the situation: better call a tow truck. Apparently they didn't think my car was shovel-ready. I thought, "With an attitude like that, will we really be able to dig our selves out of anything?" In any case, their job-creating tow truck idea didn’t appeal to me. I called Jen.
Fortunately, Jen had a can-do attitude and a 4-wheel drive SUV. She offered to pick me and my equipment up — very neighborly of her. I accepted.
We drove the remaining 3 blocks to the beautiful home you see on the cover. The snow had stopped, clouds were brightening, and the lighting was starting to look workable. But the 10 kilowatts of PV panels I had heard about were about as visible as the surface of the road where I left my Insight. I could just make out the top 6 inches or so of the panels — all I could see was the caption: “the alleged PV panels…”
But, being an engineer, a photographer, and an optimist, I thought: hmmm, a few inches of dark panels exposed to sunlight might just heat up enough to melt the bottom layer of snow on the steep roof…
I dragged my lighting equipment into the garage and started scouting out the interior. Jen, who had graciously set aside time from 9 to 11, only had 45 minutes left before her next appointment. No time for fancy light setups here, so I started shooting with natural light as the sun appeared. Snow makes a great reflector-card to bounce the sunlight deep into the home. Very nice. Very lucky.
Jen had to lock up and go. So we packed things back into her SUV. The sun was making a more confident appearance, the PV panels were warming, and the snow was slipping off. She dropped me off at my not-so-shovel-ready car and I was on my own for the outside shot.
My car was still deep in the snow with its emergency flashers on (a fully charged hybrid can flash for several decades, I’m told). The snow had started to melt around my car and getting out of the mess wasn’t as hard as I had feared — just needed a little patience and a little sunshine. I found my way back to the platinum home — most of the PV panels were visible and some blue was peeking into the sky. I set up my tripod, leveled my camera, and framed things up.
[I like using my 24-mm tilt-shift lens for architectural shots because I can keep the sensor plane parallel with the building to avoid the converging lines that make it look like you’re a little kid looking up at a tall building. And it is a great way to make room at the top for the SOLAR TODAY banner.]
I waited for something to happen — the clouds to change, the sun to come out, the economy to recover. Anything. Then the sidewalk-snow-removal guy came by. Then the sun came out. Then a guy with high-contrast dogs jogged by. “Oh,” I thought, “too bad he’s going in the wrong direction and I’m talking to the sidewalk-snow-removal guy.” Oh, well.
I clicked off 50 or so frames that just didn’t seemed to quite work, but figured I had done the best I could do that day. Then, as I was collapsing the tripod, the guy with the high-contrast dogs headed back. A little patience and a little sunshine.
Now if I can only get the dogs to smile.
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This was Dan Bihn's seventh SOLAR TODAY cover. He's been shooting for the magazine for four years.
