Photographing a laser beam

2006-0710-0020, originally uploaded by jamest210.

My project was to photograph a guy working on some medical equipment with a laser beam. I didn't have much time to prepare or think, just get the shot. I was packing light for this job, since I was on my motorcycle. All I brought was my D200, 17-35 2.8 lens, two SB-800's, some gels and a tripod. I made a couple of snoots on-site out of some fedex envelopes and tape. We used some black posterboard as a gobo. We wanted a dark shot since they normally do this in almost complete darkness. I placed an SB-800 with a red gel since the digitizer and held another one in my left hand, with the snoot pointing at the technician's face. A third person held the gobo behind the digitizer. We tried using aerosol to highlight the laser, but the light from the strobes would reflect in the laser so I just ended up photoshopping the laser in during post-production.
I thought the shot turned out quite well, although if I had more time and a laptop to preview the shot I probably would have done things a bit differently. As it was, I only had about 10 minutes to do the entire thing.