Sometimes it is useful not to speak the language, or to look like a foreigner.
Loja had a parade, made up of High school bands. The weren’t the most talented but it was entertaining.
I arrived a little late… I was fighting a cold… I did not get a good vantage point…. I just became a photojournalist and walked down the middle of the street.
I did have one of the many police try and talk to me, but my not understanding Spanish, and the professional looking camera I had, kept it to a minimum and he let me do my thing.
It was a hot, sunny day. A great day for a parade but not a great day for photography. The high sun makes dark shadows that are difficult to deal with.
Once I got onto the street my plan was.
Use Backlight… so that kept me to one side of the street ( mostly)
use center weighting exposure and underexpose by 1 to 2 stops.
The underexposure was to allow for my highlights to be kept from being blown, while ( hopefully) there would be enough details in the shadows to allow me to open them up using Lightroom and the fill control.
I also like the backlight to separate the subject from the background.
I walked up the street, in the opposite direction of the parade so I could see what what developing in front of me and get into a postion for shots to develope.
There are times I waited for the shots to come to me, and times I went to the shots
One of the things I found when walking was that I was walking up hill, which gave an interesting background to the shots.
All these shots were with a 50mm lens Shutter priourity, center weight exposure EV -1 to -1.5
To see these images larger, and other image I have please check out my Photo Gallery
