Holi Festival

[MarkBarbieri]

A local Hindu Temple is celebrating Holi this Saturday. I have volunteered to photograph the event for them. My wife will also be shooting the event. I've never been to a Holi Festival and I'm a little vague on what to expect. I know that there will be a lot of colored powered, probably some water, and everything will be festive and messy.

I'm working on my gear options. I think I'm going to bring my 28-70mm f/2 as my primary lens, but I'll also bring a 70-200mm f/2.8 and a 15-35mm f/2.8 in case I want to zoom in tighter or get wider. I thought about bringing my 85mm for portraits, but I think the 70-200 will cover that well enough. My fear is that I won't want to change lenses often with all the color and water everywhere. My wife is going to bring a 24-70 f/2.8 and a 15mm fisheye.

To protect our cameras, we'll cover them in rain covers. I'm also sticking either cheap polarizers or UV filters on the lenses. I don't want fear for my equipment to scare me away from the action. Obviously, the fisheye can't be protected and will need to get insanely close to the action. The 28-70mm is a crazy lens. It's heavier than the 70-200mm and the filter size is an astounding 95mm! I'm worried that my arms are going fall off if I shoot with it for four hours straight.

We're also thinking about wearing GoPros and shooting 4K video while we take pictures. I've found that, in the right conditions, 4K frame captures from an action camera make for pretty decent images, especially for basic online use. I'll look dorkier than usual carrying an enormous camera while also wearing a GoPro on my head, but looking like a reject from a live action Dr. Seuss casting call has never stopped me.

Should be a fun event. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to share at the end of it.

If anyone has an experience with these festivals or shooting advice for one, I'm interested.

Thanks,
Mark

 

[klmall]

Sounds like a great photo op and messy as you said.

I'm sure you have seen this article but just in case you haven't and it sounds like you have anticipated just about everything mentioned in it.

https://artofseeing.com/blog2/category/how-to-holi

Hoping you get some great shots!

 

[Pooh2]

How did the shoot go?!

 

[MarkBarbieri]

It went fairly well. I don't think I damaged any equipment, but I'm not sure if my camera bag will ever look the same.

I took a little over 3,300 pictures and paired it down to about 250. I processed them with an extra-vivid, high saturation look. It's a little cartoonish, but I wanted it to have a slightly surreal look to match the festival. Here are some of my favorites.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Here are some of my thoughts on how to shoot an event like this:

Shoot wider than you want to. Not absurdly so, but wide enough to give you some flexibility for cropping later on. It's hard not to frame the shot in the camera the way that you want it to look, but with good equipment, you've got plenty of useful pixels to crop in and there is no way to crop outward if you decide later you were in too tight.

If you want something to look crowded, step back and zoom in. Shooting from a distance makes everything look more packed in. If you get in close and shoot wide, you see a lot more space and things feel less crowded. Neither way is better than the other; it's just a matter of what story you want to tell.

Incidentally, one of the most common myths I hear, even from very experienced photographers is that telephoto lenses compress things and wide angle lens distort things. What makes things look compressed or "distorted" is where you stand relative to your subject. If you use a wide angle lens and crop your picture, aside from being lower resolution, it will look exactly the same as if you used a telephoto lens. It's where you are standing relative to your subject that matters, not the focal length of your lens. Of course, if you are standing close and using a long focal length lens, you won't see much of your subject and if you are standing far back and using a wide angle lens, your subject is going to look very small. But the lens isn't giving you the look; it's all about where you stand.

Eye/face focus didn't work consistently today. Some of that was because I was shooting in crowds and it wouldn't grab the face I wanted. Some of that was because the heavily colored faces seem to fool the camera. I forgot how incredibly useful it was to push a button and instantly focus on someone's eyes without worry about focus points and framing around them. Fortunately, I keep one of my rear buttons set to focus on the active focus point and one set to use eye/face focus, so I could switch between them quickly. And if you are using a serious camera and still have focus on the shutter button, I strongly suggest moving it to another button and learning how to shoot that way.

On a sunny day, shoot into the sun. I know that it sounds counterintuitive, but it works. First, the sun makes for a nice backlight/hair light. Second, if you shoot with the sun behind you, people will be squinting. Finally, when people's faces are completely shaded because they are facing away from the sun, it's easy to deal with that in post production. When they have harsh shadows from direct sunlight, it's much harder to work with. That said, sometimes you go where you get the best vantage point even if the sun isn't where you want it to be.

I like staying away from people and sniping with a longer lens. It's better for getting candid shots. On the other hand, having a long lens doesn't work well when a group comes up and asks you to take their picture. Once again, it's not whether the technique is right or wrong, but what suits your shooting style.

Shoot a lot and delete a lot. Most pictures aren't good. That's true even for really good photographers. But don't just stand their mashing the shutter button and getting a lot of the same picture. Move around. Change your angle. If your knees still allow it, get down low. Find things to stand on so that you can get up high. Oh, and when you take a group shot, do mash the button and fire off several of the same picture. People have a bad habit of blinking, so it is nice to have several takes to choose from.

If you want special access, just ask. I didn't know the guy in charge of this event. I just saw the ad for it and contacted him to ask if he wanted a volunteer photographer. He did, so my wife and I showed up. We got free food and drinks and had the run of the place. For me, that mostly meant the freedom to climb up onto the stage because it was a good shooting platform. But for other events, I've gotten all sorts of nice "on field" access to stuff just by volunteering to shoot the event.

On the other hand, if they've hired a professional and that isn't you, be cautious. Some pros see an amateur shooter as anything from a nuisance that might get in their way to a competitor that might undercut their prices and cost them money. Today, a guy from the major newspaper in the area showed up to shoot. I talked to him briefly and then watched out for him during the shoot to make sure I wasn't in his way.

When you do your post production, delete a lot. Try to stay with a consistent look. When something you thought was going to be good turns out bad, think about why and what you can do differently. I learn more from pondering my mistakes than from any other source.

Most importantly, have fun.