When traveling for shoots I like to schedule the earliest flight possible so that we can get to where we are going and still have enough of the day left to shoot. This works out pretty good most of the time as we can grab some shut eye on the plane. But occasionally circumstances arise which prohibit that from happening. Unfortunately Ty was up most of the night caring for his ailing father, so he had to leave town with a heavy heart full of concern for his dad and very little sleep. Not a good combination.
Considering we had packed all of our camera and light gear into two carry on pelican cases, neither one of us was looking forward much to the security screening as one cannot fall back asleep from a body cavity search before 7a.m.
Ty is as tall as a Redwood, so it didn’t help with his attempt at sleep to be crammed onto an aircraft not much bigger than a Yugo. But, despite having no leg room and a camera clicking co-passenger we arrived in Lexington, Kentucky on time and without incident.
We knew we were in the right place when every wall was plastered with racing horses. It was interesting that the rental car people didn’t go over the car with us, they just gave us the keys and off we went. Luckily, by packing and traveling light, it allowed us to rent a smaller car and save some cash.
Our first stop was CTI Science, where Boyd Haley works. Boyd was very hospitable and generous with his time and he gave us the grand tour. We proceeded to set up and go over our first round of business, having Boyd explain the process of visualizing mercury vapor using the principles of atomic absorption. While the explanation was quite technical, the final film will have the “atomic absorption for dummies” version with easy to understand graphics to help people visualize the process.
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After our time at CTI Science, we headed over to Boyd’s house and were greeted by two friendly dogs, Mandy, a black Lab and ?. It was nice to see that someone as hard working as Boyd had a place to retreat to that provided such a peaceful environment. We decided to film Boyd doing one of his most favorite past times, training his hunting dog, Mandy, by throwing out decoys onto the lake and letting Mandy fetch them. Mandy was amazingly well behaved and obiedient. After a few hours the sun started to set, giving us our cue to wrap things up and head out for a much needed bite to eat, then onto dreamland.
