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And finally the last day arrives.
After such a long tour (Bill has been traveling with Nikon through Scandinavia fr 8 days now), we are all quite worn out. I shouldn’t say this since I was the last to join the crew, however… the day in Turku was quite a long one. We got back at the hotel in Helsinki at aaound 3 in the morning, and we all worked hard!

Bil Frakes at the National Museum of Finland

First event is Bill’s lecture at the National Museum of Finland. Again, great organization by Nikon (and great food also) in an amazing arena. Bill spoke to around 200 people, and showed them his most popular multimedia videos: the one shot for the New Nikon D3s “All over down under” , Addicted to NASCAR, Rail Bird about the Kentucky Derby, and the recent Missy Koch.

As in all occasions, the vision of Bill’s works, always inspire and triggers a lot of questions, technical, compositional, of workflow and image management… Multimedia is not so popular in Europe as it is becoming in the USA, so photographers sometimes face it only now for the first time. It’s good, actually that Nikon organized this tour, because there is great need of educational activities in this direction. The new video capabilities of the new DSLR cameras are giving the market a great twist, and the world is changing accordingly. Photographers need to realize it and figure out how to turn this to their advantage. But the real surprise was when Laura joined us in the room, and showed us the first version of the vidoe she and Bill had shot during these days with the band, the Backyard Babies!!

I shed tears… everytime I see some new work of Bill I am so touched that I have tears… and this video was really good. The music is amazing, but I must say that putting images to that great song, made it really special. I wish I could show you here some images, but unfortunately we will have to wait until the official release… Bill and Laura managed to edit it in 24 hours… they looked pretty tired, but they were also thrilled byt the standing ovation they received by the audience.

At 5 pm we leave the museum to go to have the last gig with the band. The setting up is a bit frenzy because we have a shorter time than in Turku and because the venue will be so crowded that it would be almost impossible to move.

Nikon D3s on a Manfrotto 501HDV

At 7 all is set… and the music starts!
As we expected by the time the Backyard Babies are on stage, there is no room for a needle in the arena. 2 Manfrotto 536 and 1 535, plus 503 and 526 fluid heads are used to shoot with a D3s + 400 2.8 mm, 300 mm 2.8, and a 200 2.0 lenses. two more D3s have been mounted one on a jib and on a rail to give more dynamic impulse to the shooting.
At a certain point we had a casualty: a tripod leg was snapped broken by one too excited (or maybe too drunk) fan of the band. That actually jeopardized the shooting with the rail… but Bill managed to get good pictures anyway, I am sure.

Backyard Babies screaming fans

In the end, all’s good that ends well, and we ended it amazingly. The all crew had a blast and the tour overall was a success. I am looking forward to doing this again, and share some great time and also tough work with Bill, Laura and all at Nikon Nordic!! A special thank goes to Peter Brodin who organized and coordinated this great adventure. A great grazie to Bill Frakes whose immense passion is always of great inspiration for me. A big thank gos also to Laura Heald for the great little things I always learn from her. And last but not least a great thanks goes to all at Nikon Europe, Nordic, Denmarka and Finland… sorry for my Canon camera.

A final note goes to Tura Scandinavia and my friend Pär Holmen for supporting the whole tour with a lot of Manfrotto products. Thanks!

By Marco Tortato, Educational and Testimonial Manager.

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