My Saturday Night at Lotus Fest, Part 2

Part 1

...Let me tell you how I almost lost that photo.

Someone who looked like a tech guy for the band ran to the edge of the stage and jumped off. I moved out of the way, but my camera bag, slung over my shoulder, didn't move as much as I expected. He jumped through the bag, breaking a strap buckle and spilling some photo materials on the ground. My eyes went wide as I bent down to clean it up without people stepping on a UV filter or a macro lens attachment. As I gathered everything and put it on an empty part of the stage in front of me, I saw the tech guy gathering a group of people behind him. I wondered what they were going to do.

Sure enough, they all walked onto the stage for the last song of the set. Pandemonium ensued, and as the crowd started to jump in unison, I shot like crazy. The lights would flash on and off, of course, but the flashes of red played to my advantage.

In fact, I got two photos with a red background and crowd members jumping in a sea of blue light. The contrast immediately looked astounding on my camera's back screen, but I've grown to distrust that screen, so I didn't give it any more thought.

I kept shooting until I realized I was almost out of room on my memory card. Frantically, I went to the beginning of my card to delete photos from the night before. I could afford to delete them because a) the band was off-stage while everyone was shouting for an encore and b) I had dropped the previous day's Lotus photos on my laptop. Those were safe to delete.

But I also had photos I couldn't delete. I left photos that I hadn't dropped onto my laptop, so every time I went to delete the previous day's Lotus photos, I had to skip over photos from Monday and Tuesday. That made the time it took to delete photos longer, which meant I missed some of the action on stage.

I was afraid I would miss too much of the encore if I kept going to the beginning and skipping through earlier photos. so, I began to delete photos I had just taken. I went maybe ten photos back and pressed the "trash" button on each of a series of photos that were either too blurry or poorly lit.

The deleting became so automatic that I cleared one of the crowd-jumping photos.

I whispered, "Crap!" to myself and stopped deleting immediately. I had made enough room to finish the night (25 & 33), and while I didn't make it back to the vendor's tent in time to buy their album (they ran out almost immediately), I went home with kick-ass photos.

IDS management agreed. Even though I didn't get the front-page photo (that distinction went to Ryan Dorgan's photo from Los de Abajo on Friday night), my photo of the crowd on the stage (the one I DIDN'T delete!) was the dominant element on the photo page.

So, it was a good day.

My Saturday Night at Lotus Fest, Part 1

So... um... this is what I promised on October 8. Whoops. Hey, at least I'm posting it! :P

I refer to specific photos a few times. They appear here.

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I got to the Lotus World Music and Arts Festival on Saturday, October 26, at about 9:30 p.m. I had driven back from a friend's wedding in Brownsburg (west of Indy), and so I couldn't be there for the more well-lit events. I would also have to try my best with my wide lens, which only opens to an aperture of f3.5. (I also had an IDS lens, telephoto, with a wider (and therefore better) maximum aperture, but I planned on being right in front of the stage. I wouldn't need to zoom.)

I parked near Seventh & Washington, slung my camera bag over my shoulder, and made my way to the music tents. I caught the end of The Horse Flies set, so I got at least one good photo from their act. (17) After they finished, and after I realized that this might be my only good photo, I thought I would have to get some unique stuff if I were to make it into the night's slideshow. So I found people selling food outside Roots. (18)

Then Bajofondo started. Because I took the Roots food photos from more than a few angles, and because I had to wait for a time that they weren't busy to ask their names, I didn't make it to the start of the concert. Regardless, I weaved my way to the stage, holding my camera bag in front of me and my camera above my head in an attempt to explain why I was pushing people aside.

I made it to stage left (audience perspective) and started firing. (...Firing PHOTOS.) I tried using both my crappy wide lens and the really good telephoto, but because I only had one camera body with me, I had to switch the lenses every time I wanted to change the zoom significantly. I also had going against me the lights on the stage. They were green, red, blue, yellow, purple, and generally everything else but white, or else they were nonexistent. With all the flashing, I had to wait for the rare white light, although I settled for snapping photos with the other colors. Generally, colors are good, but if they screw up the general color balance to the paint that Photoshop can't fix it (and that happens a lot), you're in trouble.

I looked around the stage for someone lit by little more than white light. Eventually, I found Luciano Supervielle to the left. (19) He had a few things going in my favor: 1) back light, in such a way that it made his hair into a highlighted silhouette; 2) near-angelic light from a (white!) light to the right; and 3) enough light below him that I could see details on his face. (Oh, also, he was smiling. That helps!) I tried that photo about ten times until I was completely satisfied with the framing, the focus, and the lack of motion blur.

I then moved to Gustavo Santaolalla, a little to the right. I wanted to try a silhoouette again, especially since the light right behind him would be too blown out if I didn't have it covered. After the last successful photo, however, I grew a bit more confident and just went with what Gustavo provided. I didn't get his face in what I eventually selected (20), but the action, the white light, and the composition (I got the violinist, Javier Casalla, as well) more than made up for it. Plus, if you look close enough, you can see him yell!

The whole concert, I tried to shoot for interaction among the bandmates. Gustavo would jam with Javier, with the drummer, and with the bandoneón player, and sometimes three people would converge. Interaction almost always makes for a great photo, so I was really shooting for that. I got it (21, 23), of course in conjunction with everything else I was trying to use (white light, some silhouette).

I was also trying to get crowd shots. I had some success the night before, but I wasn't satisfied. Whereas the problem on the stage was the wrong kind of light, the problem when I turned around to face the crowd was the lack of light. lights fell on the audience less often than white light did on the stage, and when it did, it usually wasn't intense enough. Every photo I tried to get was too blurry to be any good, because I had to slow down the shutter speed to let in enough light. ...Well, ALMOST every photo was too blurry. With a combination of luck, a rare really bright light, and new-found strength in holding my camera still over my head, I got it. (22)

(A friend told me that the guy in the middle put it up as his Facebook profile picture. It's almost like someone putting your photo on their refrigerator!)

My photos had improved a lot since the start, so I started to think of leaving. I wanted to get photos at another concert, my card was almost full, and I wanted to buy Bajofondo's CD before everyone else got it. Of course, I had to things going against me: 1) there were SO MANY PEOPLE to slip past; and 2) I might miss some good photo ops. So, I stayed.

That made all the difference. I got possibly my favorite photo of all time at the end of the concert. (24) But I almost lost it. Let me tell you how.

...Next time. This post is getting a bit long-winded.

Please Check This Out. Right Now!

Believe me, I'm going to post a longer entry about last week some time soon. (I've already started writing it. Teaser: it's about Lotus Fest.) I just wanted to share this with you right now. If you don't read anything else in the Daily Mail article, at least read the lede. I swear it will stay with you for a long time.