Yo y'all,
I've got stuck with a difficult assignment last week, and I'd like to hear
y'all's opinion on how to go about it.
Sunday Nov. 18 is a nation-wide memorial day here in Germany for the dead of
the two world wars. The military reserve association I'm a member of is
holding a ceremony and I've been asked to photograph it. The event is going
to take place in the evening in the middle of a small cemetary, and there
are going to be uniformed soldiers holding torches, standing around a
monument in the center in one or two half circles or half rectangles. Apart
from the torches, the only light will be from some street lights outside the
cemetary, may be 50 - 75 m (165 - 250 ft) away, and possibly from the moon,
depending on weather conditions.
I've checked the site out and found that my 50 mm lenses (50/1.8 Made in
Japan and silvernose 50/1.4) should cover the required angle of view quite
well, which is fortunate as they're my fastest lenses. I might also try a
few shots with the 28/2.8. They want pictures both in color and b/w, so I'll
be using 2 bodies, probably an OM-2 and a 2n, on tripods of course.
For film I had figured out that probably Fuji Extra 800 would be best for
color (I've used it once before for available light shots inside a church
when I was asked to photograph a baptism ceremony and found it to give me
excellent results; tried the 1600 ASA Fuji a few years ago and found the
grain absolutely unacceptable, so this one's out of the question), and when
I asked the guys at my regular photo store they also recommended this film
for the given purpose. For b/w I didn't really know as I hardly ever do b/w;
they recommended Kodak T-400 CN, which they said they can push to 800 ASA.
So I got a roll of each.
So far, so good. Now, how am I to go about it? I know I want to try some
shots with the camera on an auto exposure of a few seconds and a handheld
low power manual flash triggered using the test button to brighten the
interesting areas (the good thing is that during this kind of ceremonies
people - especially soldiers - tend not to move around too much). I'd be
interested in some suggestions as to what other techniques could be used to
get exposures with sufficient lighting on the important parts of the frame
(the people and the monument, and may be some of the surrounding bushes)
without killing the effect of the torchlight with flash.
All hints and ideas will be highly appreciated. If I get any good shots I
will post them in my web gallery as soon as I find the time.
MtFbwy,
Volkhart
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Volkhart Baumgaertner email: kyu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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