While on location at Tatra Industries our challenge as photographers was to capture images of laser guided technology in action as well as the detail of the blinding light that is part of the welding process. It is absolutely amazing the precision of laser guided technology and what its capabilities are! This created many challenges for us in regards to capturing what the naked eye sees in person. To do this we gelled our lights with both blue and amber to create an industrial type atmosphere while using the direction of the lighting to bring the viewers eye to the focal point of the process. When shooting any type of laser like / welding process is is critical to understand the f/stop / shutter speed ratio and have the ability to alter one against the other in order to get the result desired. Not always easy..
When shooting the welding of a steel component we faced a challenge that we had never faced before.. The light from the welding process was so bright and intense that we weren’t sure the chip in the camera was capable of recording any of the process without being damaged. To offset that scenario we had to shoot at a very high f stop as well as using 2 stop ND filters on the lens of the camera. Again the use of gels creates an industrial like atmosphere and helps guide the viewers eye to the focal point of the image. 
As seen in the picture Jay had to wear a steel welding helmet in order to be able to look at the light created by the welding torch. Using a low iso speed and large amounts of neutral density accessories the image was finally captured using the strobes as the main light while showing the texture and detail of both the product and the process itself.