This image shows the challenge of light vs. dark with no where to run!
Photographing High Contrast Situations
On Tuesday morning I did a short shoot for Concordia University who was doing a ground breaking ceremony for a new law school they are building in Boise. I had met with the principals a few weeks back to go over the layout of things and get an idea of what and who was going to be where, etc. An important thing was that we met at about the same time as the event was going to take place. This was important because it gave me an idea of what challenges I was going to face with regards to lighting position. Shooting an indoor event is one thing, shooting outdoors, while not always harder, does present its own set of obstacles. In this case, I was dealing with a North to South facing event, and a 10:00 start time, which meant the sun was going to be coming in at exactly 90 degrees(ish) to my subjects. Ouch.
The second challenge came in that the Sun was peeking around the side of a building, so while the subject may have been speaking, everything behind him was in shade.
Third challenge, video crew. Video crews were there to capture the entire event, which means now my area of movement is somewhat restricted. If you’ve ever shot an event featuring a single focal point, you know that EVERYONE wants to be in that center spot. Video crews usually win that battle because, well, because they are stationary and can’t be as nimble as someone with a DSLR. So where I wanted to stand was off limits, because no one wants to see the back of my noggin on screen, so I actually had to stand back by the vid, just below the lens, and use my 80-200 f/2.8 telephoto to zoom in. Not a major deal, just something you have to think about when shooting events.
So, the trick really became trying to light everything properly and make it look ok, even in what are normally unrecommended shooting hours. (No golden hour, early morning, late evening light here, just straight up sun and harsh shadows!). I pack a Nikon SB800 strobe which helps at closer range, I metered for the shadows and cranked the flash up to +3 for most of the shots that I could get close enough to use it, but for the longer distance stuff, just had to work with my ISO and shutter speeds to get it to work.
In the end, it became a balancing act of high ISO range (640-800 for most of it), and relatively slower shutter speeds at those ISO ranges so I could pull out the details in the darker areas, while not blowing out the data bathed in bright sun light.
The Moment Of Truth
So, three morals to this story, 1) Light happens, and you just have to deal with it. Sadly, we can’t hoist lighting condition requirements upon our clients (and you know we would if we could), so we are forced to take what cards are dealt and sort it out. 2) Flexibility is the key, be nimble, bring everything you think you will need (extra batteries, etc). And moral number 3? Assault is a crime, so when someone stands right in front of your carefully crafted and long anticipated climax shot (in this case, the actual breaking of the ground with the ceremonial shovels), try to resist the urge to bash them about the head with your monopod. Pivot as little as possible without completely destroying the integrity of your shot and get what you can. Happy event shooting!
The result of an audience member who stands up right at the critical moment can have ill consequences for your critical shot. In this case, I had to jump to my left, throwing off the symmetry and balance I had lined up. I had exactly a fraction of second to adapt and get what I could.