Thirdsun: Thank you for your reply. Taking an "areal" shot of them from the stepladder wasn't on my mind at all. I had an idea of shooting from a ladder on the crane - but i'm not willing to ruin my suit on a old,rusty crane.
The flash/reflector stuff is needed to create a "look" we have in mind - but I'll also shoot more "normal" pictures first.
This image is close to the look we would like. (Property of Snorri Gunnarsson -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/snogun/)