Schafley Bottleworks' ART OUTSIDE

The assignment for this week -- Photo Journaling -- was to "capture" an event with a collection of pictures that would tell a story of sorts. Since I had a lot of other things I needed to do this weekend, I wanted to get my pictures taken on Friday. At work that day, I checked the Entertainment section of the Post Dispatch on-line to see what was going on.

Late on Friday afternoon, we went to the Alternative Art Fair at Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood. It was the first day of the weekend-long event, and we arrived about 1/2 hour after the fair opened. This allowed me to get some relatively un-crowded and not-quite-ready-for-prime-time shots early on. If you have frequented the Clayton Art Fair, you would understand better why this show was billed the Alternative Art Fair. But I liked it -- and found the artists and the art patrons to be often as interesting as the art being displayed.

The problems I encountered with this assignment had to do mainly with lighting -- how to avoid the glare of bright sunlight on the faces and clothing of my human subjects at 5:45 p.m. -- and at 8-something, what I could do (if anything) to prevent the reddish tint on the faces of band members photographed under the cover of a performance tent that was lit from within. On the plus side, I am becoming more accustomed to the shortcomings of my camera's telephoto capacities, and this week was able to make changes between settings for ISO and white balance with more of a rationale and less guesswork, overall.

I'd like to learn something about photo composition, and plan to do some reading on that. It was easier, though, for me to feel I had a little bit of an "eye" for composition this week -- as opposed to last week, for the portrait photography.

You can view the rest of my photographs for this assignment here.