Street Parade
Yesterday, I grabbed a Camera in the hope of getting a few worthwhile shots of A local Street Parade. The Parade is Where Santa Arrives at the Local Shopping Mall, and several Local Community Groups participate in it.
I only Took 1 camera with me with the 14-54mm Lens on it. I soon realised I should have also had my other Camera with the Longer Lens as well. It just made it a little more difficult to get some shots - I had to wait for the parade to get close to me to get the shot.
I ended up shooting around 50 shots and was pretty happy with about 10-12 of them. When shooting events such as this there are quite a few things to consider.
I was shooting with a fairly wide lens which meant I needed to get up close and personal with the people in the parade. It was pretty easy to do as the route was along a public road and into the shopping centre car park. I positioned myself on a roundabout at the entrance to the carpark. It was Mid-morning and the light was very Bright - which made it very easy to get high quality photos, without thinking too much about it. Just a quick check of all settings before shooting was all that was required.
This position was pretty good, as I had a view along the road as to what was coming next and also I had the opportunity to walk across the roundabout to get shots from different angles.
The biggest problem I had in getting shots I was happy with was the relative position of me, the subject and the background. I was ever mindful of nearly every shot to not get a telegraph pole growing out of someone's head! Yes, this meant that while waiting for the parade to move I did miss some shots, but those shots would have been very ordinary as a result of the Background.
My tip is when shooting events such as this is to try and find a spot where the background is neutral (or at least not too bad) before it starts. Then, also look for an alternate place that you can easily get to once the Parade has passed.
I should have taken a bit more time the day before and taken both Cameras with me and done a few test shots to determine what equipment I needed, and to find possibly a better location to shoot from, it probably would have made the difference between a dozen good shots that I got and maybe 20 good shots.
Anyway, the parade lasted about an hour, and in the end, I was reasonably happy to have some useable shots of the days events. I will be posting some of the shots to my Photoblog over the next week or so. I will probably grab a few of the good and not so good photos and discuss them in greater detail in the next few days.
