A Photographer's Dream. A Very Special Event.

What luck!  This year, I get to celebrate Halloween-- twice.
Tonight was great fun, of course, but last Sunday, I took part in a celebration on a grand scale as a hired  photographer,  covering the Toronto West Halloween Fest, in support of St Joseph's Health Centre.
The street festival included free costume parade and live entertainment. A live performance by Canada's Queen of R & B Jully Black, capped off the celebrations.
The day-long event, was a photographer's dream. Take a look and you'll see why;

Tip;  When covering events such as this, take along lenses of different focal lengths. e.g. a 28mm-80mm lens  and a telephoto lens such as 80-200 or better still , 80-300mm so you can zoom in for those close ups. Just keep in mind that the shutter speed you use should match the focal length of the lens. e.g. if you are shooting at the 300 mm focal length, the shutter speed should be at 1/300th of a sec. at least, for the pictures to be sharp. This, assuming you are shooting hand-held. 

Event Photography in Low-Light

I had the pleasure of photographing a very special event last night. Bonnie Crombie -candidate for Mayor of Mississauga- on the campaign trail,  made a presentation  to the Hispanic community there.
As Bonnie says, she is passionate about Mississauga and its people, their  welfare and happiness, and this is easy to see in the animation and expressiveness evident in these photos of her.

The event was held in a lovely restaurant. The only problem was  (for a photographer),  that the lighting was very dim. Under these conditions,  focusing becomes very difficult and the camera can just refuse to fire. Since this scenario is not uncommon, (for example, wedding photographers encounter this often) I thought I'd address it here.  

With a Speedlight mounted on your DSLRs hotshoe,  change your focus mode to AF-S (Single Servo/ Single Area AF). Now half press the shutter release and you'll see the red lights on your Speedlight activate.  A red beam will project onto your subject . This will allow your lens to focus. Problem solved.