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First Marine Corps Homecoming (C&C welcome)
Hello everyone,
I photographed my first homecoming the other day and boy was it difficult. First off, it was really difficult to focus on the job and not get emotional since I am a marine corps spouse as well. Both the husband and wife were crying! Second, the light not only kept changing, but it was mostly pretty dark on the tarmak (where they were reunited) except for some orange and yellow light sources that did all kinds of weird things. I have a speedlight but still had to keep the f-stop pretty open, creating come group photos where people are out of focus. Should I have just increased my flash power and decreased the aperture to f/4 or 5? And then thirdly it was so crowded! Any advice on how to do better next time would be very very very much appreciated :dunno
I photographed my first homecoming the other day and boy was it difficult. First off, it was really difficult to focus on the job and not get emotional since I am a marine corps spouse as well. Both the husband and wife were crying! Second, the light not only kept changing, but it was mostly pretty dark on the tarmak (where they were reunited) except for some orange and yellow light sources that did all kinds of weird things. I have a speedlight but still had to keep the f-stop pretty open, creating come group photos where people are out of focus. Should I have just increased my flash power and decreased the aperture to f/4 or 5? And then thirdly it was so crowded! Any advice on how to do better next time would be very very very much appreciated :dunno
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Your last image is your strongest one, and #2 is a close second. These are both so powerful in emotion (at least for me. I'm a Marine. I definitely get goosebumps looking at these) that you honestly could have shot them point and shoot and they would've been great images. But, you're not looking for that, so here goes.
I think in the images that you've selected, your lighting is good. Particularly in the two I pointed out. The color shots could use some WB adjustment, as they appear kind of yellow. I realize it was probably very yellow out there, but you may want to cool those off a bit and see how they look.
What could be contributing to the lack of focus is your proximity to the subjects. Even at f/5.6, if you get close, you're going to get out of focus areas, particularly with children who are always flailing about. You could increase the flash power to get more light in there at such a tight aperture.
I hope that was helpful. Honestly, though, let's hope there isn't a next time, right?