Official Photographer

I have previously blogged about our local photographic society in my village. I was asked to photograph our village garden walkabout, in conjunction with any other volunteers from the society. In the end I was charged with photographing the gardens, along with any "street" shots to capture the event. There were 12 gardens in total and I thought this would be a leisurely job - I planned to visit all the gardens twice throughout the day.

It was a steep learning curve! Here is what I learned on the day.

1. It was not a leisurely job at all - I just managed to visit all the gardens by the skin of my teeth, and I also had to go home and change my shoes as I had blisters after the first hour.
2. I had underestimated the impact of the strong contrasty light on the day. Whilst this gave some interesting shadow play & dappled light, it made photographing some of the gardens extremely difficult. The strong contrast also resulted in incorrect exposures for some of the pictures, so I had to use exposure compensation.
   
3. I made use of my circular polariser to give greater depth of colour, however some of the shadows were blocked up further by that.
   
4. In a high pressured photographic assignment, there isn't time to think about camera settings or changing lenses. I carried 2 lenses about on the day which I could have left at home. I used Aperture Priority, but I am considering revisiting Program mode for these scenarios.
   
5. I managed to gain the confidence to ask a few people that I didn't know if I could photograph them. This was a major step forward for me. I also had a few refusals which I politely respected.
6. I found it very stressful to think on my feet, and TAOP went out the window when I felt pressured to get a shot. I think this emphasises the importance of practice, practice, practice so that these things come naturally & intuitively like driving a car.

Thank goodness for Adobe Lightroom, purchased with the benefit of my student discount from OCA! It managed to save many of my washed out skies on the day, and boost the vibrance of bleached colours.

So what would I do better next time?

1. Do a dry run to better assess the size of the task.
2. Have some contingency plans for different kinds of light on the day.
3. Revisit my camera manual; in particular different light metering methods & Program modes. I must be 100% confident & knowledgeable at "driving" my camera, so all my thoughts can focus on composition & subject. When the pressure mounts, it can all go wrong very quickly.
   

I plan to use some of the shots for Assignment 3 "My Neighbourhood" and will also upload some of them here when they're ready.