Months ago, a friend sent me a note asking what I'd charge to photograph her graduation.
I'm really glad that I didn't ask for any money. Her graduation was today, and while I got some good shots afterwards, I am not at all happy of any of the ones that I got of her getting her scroll. Since I knew that I'd be throwing a party last night, I arranged to have a friend of hers get there early and reserve good spots. As it turns out, I got there only a few minutes later, and got what seemed to be an ideal spot. I was at the back of the aisle on the lawn where I could set up my tripod. At full extension of the bigma, a standing person was about the height of the frame in landscape mode. The first problem was the canopy. The poles were guaranteed to interfere with just about any shot. The lighting could have been worse, they could have been under a tent in moonlight, rather than sunlight, but the ratio of light on the people to light on the hill in the background made things rather challenging. Then there was the audience. Brandi graduated from Hay U (CSUEB), and it gets pretty warm in Hayward this time of year. So smart people in the audience brought umbrellas which served two purposes, provide shade for themselves, and block the view of anyone behind them. But I didn't mind the umbrellas nearly so much as the mylar balloons. Fortunately, they had a couple groups go before Brandi, she was getting a bachelor's and the graduate programs went first. I realized that my spot was going to be well nigh useless. As a matter of fact, I had handed my K-x and monopod to her friend Justin to get video of her, and between the umbrellas, balloons and everyone in the audience standing up to see over the umbrellas and balloons, he wasn't even able to see her. I had found a spot 90 degrees from my original spot. I had more or less a straight on shot of the podiums, and the people walking, except for the poles that is. So apart from the fact that I couldn't really see the people in line very well, because of the tent poles, and was having trouble focusing the bigma on people in the shade when I was in the sun (thank Ghu for the katzeye), the order that people got their degrees was totally random. Fortunately, the person I thought was Brandi was indeed her, and I did manage to get some photos that were recognizably her, on what was recognizably the graduation stage, but that's about the best that I can say about those shots. There was, also a professional photographer, with a flash, up on the stage, so she'll probably get at least one clear one of herself getting the scroll. At least some of the post ceremony shots came out decent, so it won't be a complete embarrassment. Lesson, learned, shooting a graduation from the audience doesn't look like a situation that is overflowing with win. -- Larry Colen [email protected] sent from i4est -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
