Festivals Galore!

So this is the third festival I have shot in the past 3 weeks. I'd been told right away that shooting the standard face painting shot had been over done, but now I can see why. There is a face painting booth at every damn festival!

I always try to find things that give you the feeling of what's going on at the event. For me, as I walked around the latest festival I really noticed that there were tons of kids since it was at an elementary school. I like taking pictures of kids if they're occupied. They tend to forget about you pretty quickly if you just have patience.

This girl was working on some pretty cool chalk suns and flowers on one of the playgrounds and I really liked the lines all over sort of flowing around up to her. Rule of thirds probably makes this photo not suck really. Always look for the ability to frame something in a third of the photo, not in the center.

Of course it's autumn so there's going to be tractor rides. This isn't really a great image. There's nothing interesting about it at all. I honestly am not a fan of it. I should have gotten something of someone in the actual trailer.

This is an example of not exploring a shot well enough. I didn't approach people to get a better image.

This image is a little too yellow for me. I should have fixed the colors. However, I like the line of sticks and the depth. I wish you could tell more easily that those were caramel apples, but I had one chance to shoot this and wasn't really thinking about upping my aperture since it was a very dark room.

Basically when I go to an event where there's a lot going on, I pick out the things that I think are going to yield me a good photo (aka. safety shots) and then move around looking for good moments. You're basically always looking for kids doing things that might end up looking cute. I try to find children or people that are active or already doing something that they enjoy, and then try to catch a moment when they're doing something interesting. This can be done for the opposite end of the spectrum I guess. Watching sad people for a good sombre moment where you can get some deep emotion. Look for the good moments that tell the story.

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Second event was another soccer game. However this was a totally different event in the long run. Had I known what was going to happen I'd have tried to gather up some more supplies or spent my time setting up something to make it go better.

I had to shoot the festival just before the soccer game so I didn't get a ton of time to scope out the field or set up flashes to try to gather some light. I was hoping to get there early and try some added flash light for a good effect, but things would not happen as I'd hoped.

Arriving at the event I park my car and empty my bag of the things that I know I won't need. Leaving my little flash mods and my wide angle lens (something that really doesn't get used much in soccer) I prepare to exit my vehicle. Of course as soon as I get out I feel a couple of rain sprinkles. Great. Shooting in the rain is never fun. You've got to keep your camera dry and keep the water off of your lens. It's times like these that I always carry a grocery bag with me so that I can cover my camera while I shoot (rip a small hole in the bottom of the bag and put the tip of your lens through it, cover camera with bag, voila! instant camera-condom).

When there's rain, there's usually a delay of game. Which of course means the light is going to slowly go away to the point where I'm barely able to get a good shot. I wanted to use a couple of flashes to add some light to the game as it got darker. I'd hoped to use a clamp to attach my flashes to a fence right at the edge of the field, but sadly I hadn't thought about the actual distance from one side of the field to the other. It's much greater than something like a basketball gym. At a distance like that, my cheap remotes just can't handle. Also, one of my flashes is only an optical slave (triggered by the light from the other flash) and the distance was too much for that flash to be able to see the light.

So added light is killed. Now I've got to shoot in very dark conditions. Extremely high ISO it is. And as a byproduct, grainy pictures. Something I really don't like.

These images look strange because it's so dark behind the players, but it's about all I could get. I can't really throw flash at them on camera because that'd probably be pretty hard from the distance I'm shooting (roughly 20 yards or more).

The shadows are too dark compared to the highlights. The stadium lights are too far away and sadly are the only source of light so there's too much contrast.

I had a ton of trouble keeping my stuff dry and once it stopped raining I had trouble finding light. I wish I knew how to get good shots from small town sports at night so I could give up some secrets, but I really don't.