Sunday, December 16, 2012

Fine Art Photography Techniques: Sunday's Shot Tech

Christmas Doll: Community Christmas Parade  L. A. Lewin Copyright 2012

Greetings!  Hope everyone is well and ready for the holiday season!

suburban community North of Atlanta was having their annual Christmas parade, and I asked the organizer if I could capture a few shots - he pleasantly agreed.

Colored lights sparkled and Christmas music blaring - holiday-joy resonated in the air!  To capture the mood, Flash was not used - but instead, I dial-in a very high ISO value.  High ISO settings create a low signal-to-noise ratio or a noisy - film-grain character.  In landscape or most portraiture photo shoots this is  not the first choice for photographers, but to create or in this case, capture a mood, the high ISO setting was utilized.  I was aware making this choice may yield less "keepers" that if I used Flash.  But eliminating Flash was essential to creating the holiday spirit I felt while on location.

I approached each of the parade floats just before they began their journey through the neighborhood - at least I would minimize the amount shaking or movement of the subjects - to give me more chances to capture acceptable images.

Through the viewfinder, I kept aware of the space surrounding the subjects and tried to keep cars, light posts and identifying signs out of the frame.  Because I was working fast and did ask children or adults to pose, I kept my Canon 16-35mm F2.8 L II set at 35mm for the entire session.  Later I can re-crop if needed to compose as desired.  Being dark and not using Flash I dialed in an F/2.8 aperture, wide-open, setting.  This will allow as much as light as possible to pass through the lens and onto the sensor.  As it relates to focusing, the wide-open setting will create the most bokeh - or blur - near and around my point of focus, thus narrowing my room for error, but aware I will be creating soft, film-like photographic images - and this is what I wanted. 

The lovely image above was one of 4 frames captured while kneeling to the side of the float.  The young girls doll-like expression-character captured the innocents and spirit I was looking for. 
 Your feedback is always welcomed.  Thank you.

Technical: 

  • ISO 6400 (No Flash)
  • Aperture Priority mode: I set the aperture to F2.8, (wide open)
  • Captured @35mm angle of view
  • Shutter: 1/50 second
  • Chromatic & Luminance corrections via CS5 software
  • Black+White conversion via Silver Efex Pro 2 digital darkroom software
  • No other post-production manipulation applied to this image file