I was invited to the Chase Festival in Heidelberg, Germany to be a part of the media team. Ali was our contact person in the organization and I want to thank him for his patience in dealing with us as he paid a lot of attention to us even though he had so much to deal with. I'm sure that other people could have answered some of my questions but however exhausted he was he had the patience for me. Thanks Ali!
The team consisted of
Slava - photo, video, and photobooth
Nuno - video
Carter - video and photo
Sean(me!) - photo
I was responsible for the survivor's photos on both the Thursday (above) and the Saturday (below) evenings. A survivors photo is a celebration of all the people who stayed and kept the party going until the end.
The venue for all the parties was incredible Stadthalle, the historical grand city hall built in 1903. The Thursday night survival photo was taken on the smaller dance floor as the big floor was not open yet. The low ceiling allowed me to bounce a flash to add a touch of soft lighting. I could have made the bounce directional from the side but then I would have had to bounce light from both sides with a second flash. Given that this was a big group picture I decided that I should apply the k.i.s.s. principle (keep it simple stupid). Maybe this is something I will practice and add to my bag of tricks.
The Saturday night survival photo was with a far larger group. We took it in the main ballroom because it had the space and because that's where most of the dancing was happening that night. I had worked with the in house lighting guys for most of the weekend and we had set up the lighting to light the performance area of the dance floor like a theater. Front light for skin tones from the high corners and color and ambience lights from the high sides with two blue rim lights.
The group was big so I had to do some cat herding to get them all in the frame. To make the lighting a little more interesting I decided to not stand in the 'front' so that the lighting was equal on both sides but I took the photo from the side of the lighting scheme so that there is some shape and definition in the faces of the people.
More photos of the Chase will be up soon but as I have 4000 photos to work through it could take a bit of time. Do you agree with my lighting choices or would you have done it differently? Let me know in the comments below.
chasefestival.com - website for Chase Festival
aliandkatja.com - website for Ali and Katja
facebook.com/Bogatov.Slava - facebook page for Slava
facebook.com/nunofmneves - facebook page for Nuno
facebook.com/CarterHPhoto - facebook page for Carter
facebook.com/SeanBeardMoose - facebook page for Sean