Thanksgiving In San Mateo

 

Providing meals to help less fortunate families celebrate Thanksgiving has become more important for a number of reasons. The economy has put a major strain on many families, and Covid precautions limits access to friends and families. No matter the reason, Samaritan House in San Mateo has been preparing meals and distributing them to all, free of charge.

As we emerge from the restrictions of total lockdown, there have been an increase in the number of events I've been asked to cover. Up until now, nearly all involved single subjects in easily controlled environments. This time, it's back to the "run and gun" events that involve lots of people and lots of action. I'm ashamed to admit that I need to start paying more attention to my equipment preparation, as on a recent assignment I lost the use of my spare Fuji body when I forgot to load a fresh battery in my primary camera  and needed to make a swap midway through the assignment. I've learned from my mistake, and both cameras had fully charged batteries and formatted cards.  Spare batteries were now safely stowed away, and my flash was fully charged.

I learned a clever procedure for getting permission to photograph meal recipients. Before any car, bicycle, or person entered the meal queue, they were interviewed by volunteers, asking is they could be photographed, or if they could be photographed and interviewed by the media. If they answered "yes" to the first question, a piece of orange tape was placed on the car's windshield. If the answer was "yes" to the second, two pieces were attached. Once permission was established, a number of consenting recipients were both interviewed and videoed for other news outlets. 

As is my practice, I avoid photographing the recipients altogether and instead concentrate on the volunteers who make the events possible. I also try in include any location identifiers, participant logos, and other visuals that add to the context. The submitted shot (top of post) has white food bags, masked volunteers, touchless loading to show Covid compliance, and if you look carefully, the logo of Samaritan House on the sign held by the woman in the background. There is one nit worth picking - You cannot tell of the young man is putting things in the trunk, or taking things out. Other than that, the photo supports the short caption that will be sent with the photo.

This photo (left) wasn't seriously considered, but illustrates an important point. My subject's hand placement sends a message of "Oh my goodness", or "Are those magic carrots?" Had I made the photo just a few seconds before, I might have had a shot of her placing the produce on the top of the pile. Unfortunately, burst shooting isn't an option when flash is used to supplement the existing lighting, so timing is all important.

If I were rating the photo on information points, it literally shouts "food", but fails to express anything else. I really liked the way the light was filtered through the rear window, and the way the carrots were exposed, but beyond that, it fails to win the cigar. Looking back it would have been easy to ask the volunteer to remove the carrots and place them back on the pile of groceries, but with so much going on, I thought it best to not attempt to micro-manage the shot because it would not have been significantly better than my current first choice.

I used a 10-24mm wide angle zoom for this last shot. It allowed me to move closer to my subject, a handy trick when working in crowds. The down side is the inherent altering of perspective. Here, the trunk of a hatchback appears cavernous compared to the volunteer filling it with meals. In some ways, the composition is the best of the lot, but it has fewer context points to support the story the photo was to tell. One technical point: Unless you narrow the flash's beam angle, you'll seriously overexpose objects that are closer to the flash. Using a narrower beam, the flash is confined to the center, and the light at the edges less intense. I like using a Godox V1 flash because it round reflector gives a smooth lighting transition from the center to the edge. In a pinch, you can also rotate the flash head to favor the right side of the frame, effectively reducing the light on the left. I tend to avoid using TTL flash exposure metering because I don't have a lot of confidence in the Fuji system's output accuracy. I have much more faith in the Nikon iTTL system, but the weight of the equipment forced me to seek lighter options.

I think this assignment was something of a wakeup call. For nearly two years my photography was confined to slow photos of plants and architectural details of the older homes in my neighborhood, taken with inexpensive manual focus lenses and a luxurious abundance of time. This wasn't prepared for my sudden re-emersion into the rush-rush environment of event photography where  nothing stops just because I'm unhappy with the composition or the exposure. I feel I got lucky this time, and I will work to bringing speed back to my run-and-gun game.