A Covid Commemoration

Photo #1

 

Photo #2

I have difficulty deciding which photo to submit for publication, especially if there are several worthy ones. This is not always the case. Often there is only one choice: the specific photo that was staged or posed specifically for the shot. Usually, it's a picket fence with my subjects wearing their best happy faces and hopefully with a prop of some kind. These shots are often the ones with the tightest restraints on shooting time, so the whole process must be wrapped up in a few minutes or less.

Before submitting the shot (or shots) to my editor, I have to consider the possibility that more than one photo will be needed to complete the story. In one case many years ago, the Journal published three photos taken at the same event. Of course, they were all of cute kids playing in a mountain of artificial snow, and I can assume there are three very happy families who now have their children immortalized in the paper's achieves. Here, during an actual event, I could make as many shots as I wished once each of the three main speakers took their place at the podium.

For the record, the photos were helped along with the help of a shoe-mounted flash. Both the camera's exposure settings and the flash output were adjusted to minimized blow out the highlights where the two light sources overlapped.

When I arrived on the set, I hadn't thought about creating a two-photo spread, which David Hobby called a "hen-egg" combination, where one photo set the context, and the second provided some additional detail. I first concentrated on getting a shot that featured my main subject, Congresswoman Jackie Speier, who was the primary speaker and the one dedicating the local memorial patterned after an installation of more than 700,000 white memorial flags artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg placed on the National Mall in September, one for each victim of the Covid virus.

Photo #3

In my first attempt, I got this shot that shows the flags in the background. This was the best position I could get, as an ABC News crew was position itself directly in front of the podium. While the composition combined all of the key elements, I considered it a keeper, since it had all the elements I wanted - representatives from the surrounding cities, a doctor, and a pastor from a church whose congregation suffered disproportionally from the virus. There was one drawback: Everybody was smiling. Maybe not the best impression to give the viewer. Still, it had all the visual elements I needed in a single photo, so I submitted it.

Photo #4

This second shot has a more serious quality, but I lost the view of the flags. Incidentally, these shots were made from the "Hail Mary" position, the camera being held high overhead. The rotating LCD screen made composition easy, but difficult to anticipate the "decisive moment". This was one of two photos I sent after initial five, definitely saturation bombing on my part.

Photo #5

This photo shows Pastor Paul Bains writing the name of a loved one who died from Covid on one of  the small flags. Visitors were encouraged to make a flag "their own" with a personal remembrance. This photo was also summitted.

Photo #6

Before the ceremony, I made this wide-angle shot to show give the view a sense for how many people had succumbed to the disease. Another submission.

A total of seven photos were eventually sent (two "serious" groups following my initial five). After some thought, I thought the first two photos at the top of this post would have been the best hen and egg pair. I wish I had given more thought before clicking "send", as they pretty much sum up most of the important details. The captions I provided gave the necessary detail, and in retrospect, the one flag wtih the printed name carries most of the emotion I wanted to elicit.

I wrote this post before I saw the final photo/s. I'd be curious to see how closely my final selection compares to that of the Editor In Chief.

Happy Note: The bag piper, Fred Payne, was warming up when he spotted some friends. He stopped long enough to give them this million dollar smile. The photo was made with a telephoto lens positioned about a foot off the ground. Camera to subject distance was about ten feet.

Post Script: On the following Monday, the paper ran Photo #6 on Page 2 using the caption I had originally submitted. That single photo morphed into an article that continued onto Page 15, which included the Photo #1 flag closeup with text taken from the press release. In addition, there was a tightly cropped portion from Photo #2 to show Congresswoman Speier. Had I known this simple photo would made a tight head shot, but who knew?

Halloween At The Carolands Mansion

1/4 second, F 6.4, ISO 800, 6:33 PM.

The Carolands Chateau is a 46,050-square-foot, 4.5 floor, 98 room mansion on 5.83 acres in Hillsborough, California. While not generally open to the public, the thrown a major Halloween party the features animatronic ghouls, a light show on the mansion's walls, and a entertainers such as this unicycle-riding juggler. It's like an inside-out haunted house. 

Carolands Mansion, Halloween 2019

I photographed the event in 2019, so I wasn't surprised by what I found. That photo ran on the front page of the paper, and even through this two-year absence, many of the volunteers recognized me, and remembered the photograph. I was working alone that night, and relied on a shoe-mounted flash to get the two-level (background and foreground) lighting effect. In the original image, the foreground was a bit overexposed, a on-camera flash giveaway. This year 

projectors were used to create a green spider-web pattern on the cobblestones. I also brought a light stand to hold a radio-triggered speedlight about 10' off the ground. This, coupled with a flash-to-subject (FTS) distance of about 15'. This minimized the difference in distance between the foreground and the main subject, making the exposure difference between the two regions minimal.

1/180 second, F 8.0, ISO 200, 5:36 PM.

Squid Games: A number of youngsters donned their best Squid Games outfits and led other children in a squid game of their own. I needed to make an "ice breaker" photograph, so I arranged the players in a quick 2-line composition. Using a FTS distance of about 8', a reasonable ISO and full output from my flash, I was able to balance the clouds in the background with my subjects. Notice that the transition from the lower edge of the photo to my subject's feet is a gentle one, and doesn't shout "flash" as would be heard if the flash was on-camera.

1/2 second, F 6.4, ISO 1600, 6:40 PM.

The light show was spectacular this year. The images refreshed every few minutes, changing from this collage of ghostly images...

1/4 second, F 5.6, ISO 3200, 6:46 PM.

...to this cascade of digital skulls. As I mentioned, the green web flooring was new, and I must say, the effect was total. 

All exposures 1/4 second, F 6.4, ISO 800.

The Challenge: These four photos were taken in a period of one minute. I convinced the Juggler to hover within a small footprint to keep the subject to flash distance constant. I had to ask him to just hold the illuminated balls because they caused streaking when they were in motion. I chose to take the series while moving from group to group, so I had no control over which images were being projected on the mansion. I would have loved either of the two samples in the post, but you take what you can get, and try to inconvenience as few people as possible.

Rear Curtain Flash Synchronization: This is the default synchronization setting for all of cameras that have that option, which is nearly all. RCFS triggers the flash at the end of the exposure, which is particularly important when working with long exposures and moving subjects. When so adjusted, a moving subject will be flash-lit at the end of the exposure, thus preventing objectional image smearing. Even if you're not sure what it does, select RCFS, if for no other reason that you won't notice any difference with your plain-Jane, flash-supplemented exposures. But if you ever have to photograph a unicycle-riding juggler at twilight, you'll thank me.