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| Photo #` |
Another Chinese New Year in Foster City. Same location, and same exposure challenges. The window in the background faces the Foster City lagoon, and on a sunny day, creates a background that is almost impossible to expose properly. I was using forward and back bounce flash without the benefit of a
Black Foamie Thing. I was forced to use my hand instead. The photo was published on Page 1 of the February 17 issue.
Photo #1 was my favorite of the two photos I submitted. The young lady is playing a traditional Chinese Hammer Dulcimer. Behind her are the San Mateo/Foster City School Superintendent, two members of the SM/FC Board of Trustees, and the Mayor of Redwood City.
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| Photo #2 |
This second choice shot (
Photo #2) is a bit crowded. The 28mm equivalent lens of the X-100 wasn't wide enough lens to include more spectators on the left and all of the Lion's rump on the right. I liked the contrast of the young lady's hand on the dark background, and while it appears she is trying to hypnotize the Lion, she's actually holding a cell phone camera.
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| Photo #3 |
The One That Got Away. This is the photo that I didn't submit because I forgot to ask the name of the teacher in the blue t-shirt. It has everything I could have asked for. The off-center composition is full of enthusiastic spectators, bringing the photo something none of my others had - the audience's involvement in the Lion Dance. The combination of window light from the left with my bounced flash fill gave the image more depth than the other two. Alas...
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| Photo #4 |
I rejected this photo (
Photo #4) because the lion's black mane seemed to melt into the background, It didn't think it would reproduce well if accepted for publication.
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| Photo #5 - 1/500, F 5.6, ISO 800 |
Technical Notes: I used a Fuji X100S fitted with my newly acquired
Fuji WCL-X100 adapter, believing that its 28mm equivalent view would be wide enough for use in these relatively tight quarters. I made all of these images with a Fuji X100S with the wide angle adapter except for
Photo #1, which was made with an X-T1 with a 35mm 1.4 lens.
Lighting: I used forward and side directed bounce flash to boost the interior lighting levels. I used the Adorama Flashpoint Li-On speedlight in the manual mode, full output. The recessed skylight directly above the performers made it difficult to back-bounce, but when the speedlight was aimed camera left and bounced off of a wall, I was rewarded with soft lighting with a sense of direction, as you can see in
Photo #5. One other point: You can actually see people beyond the back window.
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| Photo #6 |
This low-angle shot (
Photo #6) was easily made by composing with the LCD instead of the eye-level finder. The composition has too much foreground for my taste, and was removed from consideration as soon as I saw it.
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| Photo #7 |
The finale for these young dancers was this circular formation. Forward bounce was used. I rejected it because it looked too much like last year's submission. And what's going on with the man in the window?
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| Photo #8 |
Here's a young man in a colorful costume (
Photo #8). I wonder about the black and white jester's costumes, which look too Western to me.
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| Photo #9 |
Cute Kids (
Photo #9).
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| Photo #10 |
Another Cute Kid (
Photo #10).
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| Photo #11 |
This last flying leap (
Photo #11) could have been used because I had the wherewithal to ask this young man his name. But there wasn't enough context to support the shot.
The X-100S with the wide angle adapter did well on this assignment. I particularly liked the leaf shutter's ability of sync at speeds faster than the 1/180th of a second in the T-1 body. Still, the mirrorless cameras seem to be missing something that the Single Lens Reflexes have, which is the sense that you are look through the lens and not at a computer-generate simulation. I'm not sure that I'll ever really get used to it, but I'll keep trying.
