Raffle Ticket Seller

[JAS_Photo]

This Canada Day, I did the event photography for a friend who has a large block party in his backyard every July 1st. He supplies all the food, hamburgers, hotdogs, chicken wings, salad, watermelon, mussels and it's BYOB. He does it as a promotion for his company and is well attended with over 100 guests. There is a live band and Karaoke.

The problem is the contrasty light, that even a bit of flash can not solve. The back yard is mostly in shade with patches of bright, bright sunlight. Despite those problems and the severe highlights, I rather like this portrait.

[Matt K.]

I think it is stunning, JAS. The face is superbly lit, the expression is very niuce, colours are great, and I do like the contrasty shadow play. Only thing I would have done different would be orientation from landscape to portrait ... but that's a personal preference....

[Iguanasan]

Shooting in the middle of the day can be problematic but you did well here. Putting the sun behind the subject is a great idea to deal with this issue.

[JAS_Photo]

Thanks all! It was actually early evening. With buildings and fences on 4 sides and trees creating a hole filled shade with bright highlights. Also with about 100 people seated or milling about. Very difficult to meter and even fill flash could not compensate for differences. My metering was mostly f4 or f5.6 at 1/60 of a second ISO 400. So a very narrow latitude to play in. I would have liked both more depth of field and shutter speed but I find ISO 800 to be too noisy on my camera.

[Richard]

Sounds like a challenging scenario, You've controlled the light and metered well here.

[JAS_Photo]

Thanks, Richard. What turned out to be the biggest problem I had is depth of field. But most viewing the photos just want to see them selves and their friends so they will not be nitpicking about that.