Just A Man With A Camera

My wife and I recently took a trip across the province to visit our first renaissance fair! Attending a ren fair has never been on my to do list, but when the idea of going was first brought up a very enthusiastic and unexpected "hell yes!" burst out of my mouth. I really did not see that coming. So we got our tickets, a hotel room, and spent the next couple months collecting some items to put together some costumes. Naturally, I was also going to take this as an opportunity to do some shooting, not just at the fair, but to add to my ongoing project involving shooting small towns and villages on the prairies (but that will be a discussion for a future blog post)

There were vendors with increadible hand made goods (mixed in with plenty of Temu garbage that unfortunalty sneaks into too many "art" markets these days), a magician, musicians, weapons demonstrations and combat renactments, jousting, and tons of good food. So lots to shoot right? Well, I found myself struggling with something that I often run into in these situations. I'm all gung-ho to do shooting because there's so much going on around me, but my social anxiety pops up and I can't bring myself to ask someone of I can take their photo.  There were all these people around with fantastic costumes, who are doing it because they like to show off, but for some reason I have it in my head that me asking to take their photo is somehow bothering them.  So most of what I shot was from farther back and either trying to make myself go unnoticed while demonstrations and performances went on.

The day ended with a jousting demonstration which gave me an oppourtunity to put my telephoto to work with some fast action. At this point, as far as fast action I have only tried to catch birds in flight with this camera and lens. While it didn't lock focus or track as well as I would hope, I did manage to get a few shots that I'm pleased with.  There were a few that I liked the content of better than the ones below, but they were not sharp. The tracking autofocus that was locked onto one of the riders, suddently changed to the events presenter who came into the foreground as I was panning across the jousing field. I can't fault the camera and lens too much though, because my position from the stands didn't help much either. There were fences, and other event staff that got in the way of my shots as well that contributed to only walking away with a few shots I was excited about. 

All in all it was a good day. Fun events, good food, good friends, good vendors, and I walked away with a few lessons.  I need to get more practice with my telephoto and camera's tracking focus. I haven't found myself in situations all that often that give me the oppourtity to practice, so that may be something I should put some focus on. Additionally, I need to work though some of that social anxiety about approaching people about taking their photo, especially in situations like this where they are practically begging for the attention and compliments about their outfits. Maybe this just further proves that photography has become theraputic for me.  I'm not only finding joy in the artform, but taking what I'm doing and trying to work on myself and my mental health. It's just proof that little by little, I'm on the right path with what I'm doing.