Light Painting for Fornengo Forest Products
Recently, I had the pleasure of creating some pretty cool and unique light painting projects for Fornengo Forest Products located in Danbury, Wisconsin. This first project, one of 3 (maybe even 4), was created near Hayward, Wisconsin. And, it’s a doozie! We’ll write about the others once they’re completed.
Here’s the setup. All we had to do was wait until dark to start light painting everything.
Light Painting Heavy Equipment
The Fornengos, Josh & Brandie, and Brandon & Tanya hired me to create something cool for their dad, and father-in-law Tim. They found out about our light painting photography through Ray & Anne, who live just up the road from their headquarters in Danbury.
I had the pleasure of light painting Ray and Anne’s Trans Am and 1979 Chevy Truck last fall. As you can see below, their light painting project turned out amazing, and they shared my contact info with the Fornengo family.
Here is the final one-of-a-kind artwork of Ray and Anne’s pair of awesome vehicles!
When they contacted me about creating their project, I shared some of the other heavy equipment projects that we’ve light-painted in the past. One of my favorites is shown below. You can read about it here.
A cool light painting of five heavy construction vehicles and a really beautiful sunset.
Light painting these big machines is pretty cool, but there are some real challenges in doing so. These on-site locations come with some physical challenges and risks. It’s not exactly like light painting a pretty car, on nice even pavement!
The terrain is often very uneven, and in the case of this project, full of tree limbs, stumps, and other goodies that can potentially cause problems for the photographer who’s walking around in the dark with a light on a long pole!
Here’s a pretty good view of the 72″ SERCO Saw attached to a SERCO 300. There’s a possibility that there’s a light painting coming that showcases this saw! (Don’t tell anybody!)
We’ve got six big forestry harvesting rigs in this light painting photography project! I’ve added links to some of the manufacturers so you can delve deeper into them if you wish. From left to right we’ve got:
Light Painting a John Deere 948L-II Grapple Skidder
At just under 50,000 lbs, the John Deere 948L-II Grapple Skidder has no problem moving things around! In fact, when I asked Josh if he could level out an area for my tripod and camera, this was the rig that he employed for the job (it was easy-peasy for this machine)!
This is the big guy that made a nice spot for my camera and tripod. It’s a John Deere 948L-II Grapple Skidder.
A Grapple Skidder is a four-wheel-drive machine, with 6″ thick rubber tires. It’s articulated so it can move about in tight quarters. There’s a safe cockpit for the operator, a forward dozer blade, and a maneuverable grappling device at the back of the machine.
These machines are generally used where feller buncher machines are working. The 22.3 square foot grapple on the John Deere 948L-II delivers wood to the landing. The grapple squeeze provides a constant pressure, so operators are less likely to lose a log, even if a load gets jarred.
Light Painting a SERCO 300 Series Loader
The SERCO 300 Series Loader can rotate 360 degrees and has a wide variety of device add-on options available for working out in the field. This one, as well as the second one on the scene, both have a 72″ SERCO Saw attached (although this one’s saw is out of view due to the John Deere 948L-II).
This is the first of two SERCO 300 Series Loaders. The massive 72-inch SERCO Saw is hidden from view but can be seen in its twin brother’s light-painted photo.
The hydraulics on this loader are exceptional for applications in the Forestry Industry. It has a lift capacity of 35,000 lbs with its standard 32’ Knuckle Boom. The operator’s cab measures 40″x 60″ and comes with a roof window and a cab safety screen. If you look closely at this light-painted photograph, you can see that the screen does a great job of protecting the operator!
Light Painting a John Deere 2154G Swing Machine fitted with a Pro Pac Delimber
Weighing in at 68,925 lbs, the John Deere 2154G Swing Machine is a beast! Swing machines are very efficient at log loading as well as processing and harvesting trees. They help move more wood more efficiently.
The light painting of this John Deere 2154G Swing Machine with a Pro Pac Delimber turned out great!
A Pro Pac Delimber is attached to this 2154G. As the name implies, the Pro Pac Delimber grabs the entire tree and then quickly removes the limbs so it can be cut to length right there in the field.
Light Painting a Tigercat 625E Skidder
The Tigercat 625E Skidder is up next. This big guy wasn’t originally going to be in the light painting project. It was parked off to the side in the field behind the scene.
Once I had the shot set up, I could see that it was going to be showing off to the side in the background. So I asked Josh if we could place it in the shot. We ended up centering it back up on the hill behind the others.
Even though it was in the distant background, this light painting of the Tigercat 625E Skidder turned out pretty cool!
A skidder is a type of heavy vehicle used in a logging operation for pulling cut trees out of a forest. The process is called “skidding”, in which the logs are transported from the cutting site to a landing. There they are cut to length, and then loaded onto trucks and sent to the mill. This one is articulated, which helps it to maneuver well in tight quarters.
Light Painting a SERCO 300 Series Loader equipped with a 72″ SERCO Saw
This is the second of the SERCO 300 Series Loaders. The massive 72-inch SERCO Saw is pretty darn cool!
This is the second SERCO 300 Series Loader in this light painting project. Just like the first one, it also has a 72″ SERCO Saw attached. However, this one you can actually see! At 6 feet around, the cutting blade on this dude is huge! It’s the biggest “table saw” that you’ll probably ever see!
Light Painting a Tigercat X830E Feller Buncher with a Tigercat 5400 Felling Saw
Weighing in at a cool 76,000 lbs, this Tigercat LX830E Feller Buncher is another amazing piece of engineering! This cool machine typically “fells” trees (cuts them down), then places them in a neat pile. It’s specifically designed for harvesting timber, especially in steep or uneven terrain, and is known for its stability.
Here’s the cool light-painted photograph of the Tigercat X830E Feller Buncher along with a Tigercat 5400 Felling Saw. So cool!
This particular multi-tasking Tigercat LX830E is equipped with a Tigercat 5400 Felling Saw, which is also pretty impressive! The Tigercat 5400 Saw alone weighs 5,930 lb, and can cut timber up to 21″, or bunches of timber up to 4.9 square feet! Not only that but by using its onboard computer system, it can precisely cut them to any length!
Light Painting Photography Is A Team Effort
Josh & Brandie were my trusty assistants on this project. Josh placed the machines in the scene and even used one of them, the John Deere 948L-II Grapple Skidder, to clear a spot for my camera and tripod. Brandie was my camera “trigger”. I would tell her when I was ready, and she would tell me when to start light painting as she fired the camera wirelessly using my iPad Pro.
On a side note, Brandie must have cement feet, as she was walking around barefoot most of the night! Even my shoes hurt from all of the sharp objects I was walking on, and she was barefoot! She did put on a pair of flip-flops around 11 pm because her feet were getting cold. Amazing!
As you can see, the ground wasn’t exactly smooth at this light painting site! Brandie was walking around barefoot in this debris field all night long! Amazing!
Both Josh and Brandie caught on pretty quickly as to what good exposures look like and whether I needed to make another pass for any reason. I appreciate your assistance, and I hope you both enjoyed being a big part of the creation of your cool project.
It’s a Whopper!
As I mentioned earlier, this project was a doozie! Six rigs, very spread out over a large area with very rough terrain. I had a blast! Josh had to be back on-site at 5 am, so I sent them home “early” at around midnight. I stuck around a while longer, and didn’t get back to my hotel until almost 2 am! The pretty finished artwork is below.
Here’s the final light-painted photograph! In this amazing image (from left to right) we have a John Deere 948L-II Grapple Skidder, a SERCO 300 Series Loader, a John Deere 2154G Swing Machine with a Pro Pac Delimber, a Tigercat 625E Skidder. a SERCO 300 Series Loader with a 72″ SERCO Saw, and a Tigercat X830E Feller Buncher with a Tigercat 5400 Felling Saw! Pretty cool!
More About Fornengo Forest Products
When I stopped by to discuss their light painting project back in March, this truck was checking its weight before heading out on the road. The scale was right there at Fornengo Forest Products headquarters in Danbury, WI.
They have the latest in technologically advanced mechanical harvesting equipment, along with experienced and well-trained employees. From the first tree that is cut, until the last load has been hauled, they know that landowner satisfaction is priority number one.
Fornengo Forest Products employs two professional foresters with over 80 years of combined experience. Both are retired from the Minnesota DNR. One forester works primarily with public lands forest management and the other in private lands forest management.
The Movie
Each of our major light painting projects concludes with a “Build Video”, and this one does as well! The link to view it is below from our YouTube channel. It contains the actual images that I used, as well as the step-by-step “build” of the project, one layer at a time, using Photoshop, and other programs.
All told we took 282 images that night, and 99 of them, and over 163 layers in Photoshop were used to create the final artwork for Fornengo Forest Products.
If you like heavy equipment, you’ll probably enjoy seeing some of the other light paintings that we’ve created. You can search for all of their backstories on this website’s blog. We also have a dedicated Light Painting website, and there is a page there that features our other Heavy Construction Equipment projects. Here’s the link to that page.
Thank you for reading our story and have a great day! – M&J