Salmon Festival

Ok, this one's going to be short and sweet if I can help it.

Following the Fish Boil event, I received an assignment for the Salmon Festival the next day. The office basically wanted shots of each event that was going on that day; fish catching contest, art fair, wine tasting, kids zone, and grape stomping. Gladly I don't get a lot of assignments so I had a whole 3 hours to really make sure I got some good shots. This is pretty uncommon in the newspaper world. Usually you're shooting lots of stuff each day.

Lucky for me there were time table fliers around for me to budget my time out. If I can, I like to write down all the stuff I've got to do and order it out so that I have a schedule. I'm a nerd.

First was the fish catch contest. Nothing exciting for shots so I'm going to skip it. Guys having fish weighed in for an hour. I sat there for half an hour and got maybe one tolerable shot.

Second was the art fair. I looked for the standard "people looking at stuff" shot and got it as my failsafe. Then shot an "inanimate object in the foreground" shot. Trust me, both of these are so common that they make me look like a total moron. I just couldn't find anyone doing anything visual at this art fair.

Third was the wine tasting. Big tent, lots of people, lots of moments. I walked the place a few times getting the yet again overly common "person handing the other person a glass" shot. Really tells the story there doesn't it? There was wine being given out... check. I don't like those shots. The reader should know that there was wine by reading. But they didn't get the idea of the fun. So I shot the shot you see here.

It's a moment. And a good one if I say so myself. Mom stealing some fun with her baby of 20 months. Cute to say the least.

I also grabbed this shot as a detail. Details are great when you want the chance of a picture package. They run well small as secondary shots. And they help to tell more of the story.









I left the wine fest and went to the kids zone. The usual children's activities. Face painting (over-shot to the point that my editor said to avoid it), crafts, fishing, etc. I chose crafts. They're sitting still and you can get some cute expressions. Like the one here.



Last was the grape stomping. Great spot for some face reactions. Which is what I got. Trouble here was that I was facing into a bright sky. I shot some flash into the subjects to get their shadowed fronts up to near the light behind them. It looks a little unreal, but I think it's better than silhouettes against a sky.

All together I got a good package. The best part about this whole setup is that I shot it all on my own. No other photographers were assigned to the event. At the college paper, something like this would likely be entrusted to two or even three people. Glad I got to put myself to the test. Should have tried to shoot it faster though. All that in an hour would be much better.

The captions for this were fun. I got to talk to people and not worry about them going anywhere. I think my next post will be about captions and the process of approaching people. Good stuff for newbies to start on.