Monday Photo Roundup - Oct. 1

Settling into fall and football weather..  To follow up on last week's homecoming post, here is an interesting observation.  On Friday, the best reaction upon the announcement of king and queen winners was from the parents rather than the students.

Be a Photographer!  1946 vocational film shows that everything has changed, and not much has changed.


The cost of printer ink, relative to other liquids.  There's gold in them thar cartridges!

Big price drop on the still-impressive Canon 5D Mk II.  The dreamy look of modern wedding and family portraiture is, in part, the work of this camera.  However, the autofocus and sensor improvements of the Mk III version may be worth almost twice the price?

There are other Canon rebates as well...

Golden corporate headshot advice from The Slanted Lens is up on Strobist...

Finally... In low-light high school football, you really want the action to be right in front of you (or invest in an $11k lens).  So it was nice to be in the right place at the right time Friday.  In Terrell, the light is particularly bad, as you can see in this series....

Have a great week!

Homecoming Queens

Ahhh, Homecoming.  The wonderful high school tradition that is lost on me, but that is OK.  Maybe I will get more sentimental later in life.

I was discussing photog duties during homecoming with another photog and was reminded that this will be my fifth year doing this.  Which is a challenge now to make something that doesn't look like every homecoming shot from the last four.

Of course, the homecoming queen is the primary objective.  Football and all else may be lost, but you really need the queen :).

The real problem is that there isn't much room to take a risk.  You have to get some sort of shot for the newspaper to run.

The first year I shot homecoming was the best reaction moment of all so far.

2009 was less of a reaction, and less of a sharp photo by me. Not what I would call a success.



2010 was a switch to Terrell, but I didn't get much from the reaction.  A bonus, the queen's face was nicely framed by the previous queen's arm as she was crowned. Sometimes the arm is blocking the face instead.


Last year was a good reaction and a poor job by the photographer capturing it...

At least the crowning shot was in focus.

This year, it will be two homecoming games.  A few weeks ago in North Forney I got an OK reaction shot..


And an OK crowning/hug.  But just OK.


Hopefully an early start will mean good light and a good shot tonight.

See y'all in Terrell.

Quick Pics - Bonfire!

Bonfires don't quite carry the emotional significance that they did back in my high school days, but I made a quick trip to the Kaufman HS homecoming tradition to have some fun with the camera.

I was a late arrival, and the sun was setting behind the stage area... not great. Over on the side, another trailer had a line of cheerleaders. The sun made for an interesting near-silhouette. Your camera will automatically do this most of the time when shooting into the sun as it tries to compensate for the brightness with extra shutter speed.



The pep rally stage had a rather cluttery background (nice logo placement by our friends at Paul Murrey Ford though) so I gave up on that pretty quickly.


Up close is better, but still not great. Here the Lionettes officers show off their dance moves.


I thought it would be cool to shoot from behind the stage to show the crowd while the dancers danced. On second thought, there are probably a bunch of photos from their perspective that make it look like I'm shooting the dancers' backsides.


Having given up on the stage, I went out to visit the Lion Band... Go Band. Shiny reflective stuff, cool evening sky.. it's all good!

And now... time to have a bonfire. The only reason to take photos at a bonfire is a silhouette shot of people in front of the fire, right? Again, the camera will usually do this on its own as it tries to compensate for the brightness of the fire. To make sure, either manually set your camera for the fire, or just use exposure compensation and intentionally underexpose by -1 or -2.

This is -1, aperture priority on f2.8 for out of focus fire...



I tried the 14mm for a wide view from behind the fire to show the crowd and sky, but the people were so far away that they don't really register in the photo. The sky might be OK with some processing work, but nothing too exciting. By this time, the fire was going very well, and the heat was getting up there. My vote... move homecoming later to ensure a cooler night to enjoy the heat by!



Some more shots... Go Lions! Should be a great night for football on Friday.









Happy Shooting Everyone

Don J.