Fish Boil Assignment

First off I want to apologize for the extreme length of my posts so far. I promise I’ll try to make smaller posts and link to articles or something when I learn that a bit more.

Assignment Number Two:

(email)

Lucas,

There is a fish boil dinner at the local marina on Friday. Sometime around 5:30 is the dinner time rush for them we think.

Get us roughly 2-3 photos covering the following:

People cooking

People serving

People eating food

Maybe something incorporating the live music

Don’t forget caption information.

Turn in right after coverage.

Thanks,

Photo Dept.

This one is a subject that I’ve covered before. At my college paper (*ah cough plug your friends ah cough*) I’ve shot a similar type of assignment for the college.

There are only a few minor problems that arise during these sorts of assignments. Again, I say minor because eventually you should be able to spot them before they show up, and then adapt.

First, how do I make an image of someone eating be something interesting to look at? Well, best thing to do is bite the bullet and find a family with small children. Kids are usually always more likely to be animated than Grandma and Grandpa. It’s tough to photograph kids at times, but usually if you’re patient you’ll always walk away with good images.

Second, there are so many people, how do I get permission and the like? Well, my best approach to this is to actually talk to your subject before you shoot them. If people are waiting in line for food, like at a register, or at a buffet, just stop someone and tell them who you are, where you’re from, and ask if you can take pictures of them while they get their food. I tend to reiterate at this point that they need only to ignore me and I’ll do all the work. When they’re done getting their food, just ask them for their names and a small interview if need be.

I believe I’ll be making a post later about the importance of getting used to approaching people for photography.

Third is something that is dependent upon what the venue is of the event. As the last post talked about, lighting is important. It sets the mood. I really like to find a place to use off camera flash at some point in my assignment. All you could ever learn about off camera work can be found at Strobist. It’s cheaper than you think. Buy a flash that has the ability to be set to a manual power output, and a sync cable. Just don’t point it directly at people a lot. Harsh light and all.

The image at the left was done by holding above and to the right of the subject. I wanted it to hit both the guitarist and the rest of the tent that he was in. Using a TTL cable, a pocket wizard, or a sync cord is an easy way to do this, but note that I'm not just burning the guy from on camera. I'm diffusing it into the room. Oh, and if you can "rear sync" your flash as much as possible. It really makes your flash lit images better.

No assignment is the same. All together, your images need to tell the story. If you can’t look at your shots and get the general story from your images, you’ve got to do better. That’s your job plain and simple, write the story with your camera. Usually in one image. Tough yes, but hard work pays off.