Behind The Scenes: Cover Shoot For Backpacker Magazine

For the yet unreleased October ‘survival’ issue of Backpacker magazine, adventure  photographer, Bud Force, decided instead of having a model dangling perilously off of a cliff  that he would do a creative composite. He shot the background at ‘El Capitan’ peak in Guadalupe Moutains National Park and the subject at Mineral Wells State Park.

Using primarily Alien Bees, a slew of beauty dishes and umbrellas he shot the model (and Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator), both on location and then again in the studio to make the composite fit seamlessly.  To shoot the falling rocks the photographer shot them in his garage using a Rubbermaid lid as a backdrop so that he could extract them easily. He shot the images with both a Canon 5D MarkII and a Canon 7D with a Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 lens.