A Russian Easter

I've been doing a 4 week photo essay workshop with Frank Van Riper at Glen Echo Park, and it has given me a great reason to make some fun photos (not to mention gotten me back on my bike for the ride out to Glen Echo). I think that photographers at all levels would benefit from this kind of motivation - for this reason alone the class has been well worth the time and money.

For the class we are encouraged to come up with a set of photos (12ish) to form a narrative. I chose to photograph Easter mass at a St John, a Russian Orthodox church in North West DC. I had photographed the mass there 2 years ago, and I wanted to expand on the idea of those images by documenting the preparation for the holiday, and by meeting some of the people in the church community.

I photographed on two days. The first day I shot was the day before Palm Sunday when the church spruce up happens. I even got to ride the lift that was driven into the main gathering space to dust the chandelier and change the old incandescent light bulbs to energy efficient LED's - is their anything better than "camera privileges". The second day I shot was Easter mass, which is celebrated by candle light late on Saturday night. The bells tole as Saturday becomes Sunday and Jesus rises. (The Orthodox church celebrates Easter a week after the Christian church)

More shots here.

The first set of photos was shot with my Nikon F3 using a 50mm or 28mm lens with old school Kodak ISO400, C-41 type black and white film. The candle light mass shots were taken with either my Mamiya 7 or my old Canon L-2 rangefinder camera using Delta 3200. Using available light I hand held all the shots at f4 and w/ speeds of 1/15 or 1/30 of a second.

A special thanks to Father John and the church community who showed me around, and made me feel most welcome.

Its "All Good"

My first photo Blog – a quick reminder of a place that I’ve visited before and may not return to again, the All Good Music Festival, in Masontown, WV.

I took pics of all sorts of things. Most in the category of typical summer music festival photos - i.e.: sunsets, hay fields, tents and trailers, umbrellas, bubbles, hats, Frisbees, body art, hips and hoops and groups of friends lounging in the grass, bright colors, festival fare - A setting provided, people acting the part. I did my best to capture the textures and temperature and to create a set of images that would take me back at some date in the future.

You can see the images here.

With so much of the expected I decided to give myself an assignment, so I spent one afternoon photographing folks and their sunglasses. The idea struck me as a good one with everyone having a pair - most of them funky, and it was a good excuse to say "hello", point the camera directly into their face and snap a photo, one that was intimate and expressive but still provided the subject with a degree of anonymity. The best part was, I got to be in most of the shots via the reflection (that's me there with the Red Sox hat on, festival goings-on over my shoulder). Everyone got a kick out of the idea. I would like to have taken some more, but at some point the crowd expanded. The volume of the music rose to the point that I couldn’t easily explain the idea.

These are the best of them (probably about half). I made some small adjustments in post production to kick up the intensity of the sun and the colors - hopefully not so much that the effect distracts, and they look fake. I'm still working on some PS techniques. I'm seeking some help from a more knowledgeable friend on Monday - maybe I'll do a few "before lesson" and "after lesson" side-by-sides to show off what I learn.

... and one more of Maria's sox (ha! take that spell check.)