Brian Zinchuk Publishing

Some days when the phone rings, an unexpected call just works out. That was the case with Pacesetter Directional, a Calgary-based directional drilling company. They were looking for current drilling rig pictures in southeast Saskatchewan, and pictures of their tools in action. As it turns out, they were present on several of the rigs I shot in 2013, in particular, Red Dog Drilling 3 and 4. When I do a rig shoot, it can often take 12 or more hours, because I shoot EVERYTHING. You never know what the client might find useful. In this case, it paid off. The drilling company likely won’t have much use for pictures of the downhole tools that were on the racks, but Pacesetter sure did. I was able to supply them with a number of usable pictures from my existing library of their equipment and people in the field.

What was even more interesting was the fact that I knew one of their field hands from when I was a kid. I was taking pictures on the drill floor of Red Dog 3 last fall when a guy in grey coveralls says, “Brian?”

This is not surprising since I’ve been writing for Pipeline News for going nearly six years now. People see me with a camera all over the place. But then he identified himself as Chris. We went to church together as kids, and his older brother was my age. We spent a lot of time together in our younger days, and now, probably 20 years later, he recognized me. Our moms are still best friends, but we’ve all gone our separate ways. Now here Chris was, a directional hand with Pacesetter, and here I was, taking photos, of him, on a drill floor.

It turns out the pictures I got of him turned out beautifully. The lighting was just perfect, the colours jumped out. It was a perfect day.

Several of those photos can now be found on Pacesetter’s website, which was recently revamped with the library of photos I provided. About 3/4 of the photos I found on their site at this time were mine. Two of these are now part of my canvas print collection for sale, and indeed, I coated them yesterday. They should be mounted Monday.

Plans are to do more work with Pacesetter later this year when time allows.