James Gordon Patterson Photography: North Valley Relay for Life 12 April 2013

Sunday, April 14, 2013

North Valley Relay for Life 12 April 2013

I volunteered to photograph the North Valley Relay for Life, a fundraising activity for the American Cancer Society once again at Paradise Valley Community College in Phoenix, Arizona.

Volunteering as a photographer is a great way to give back. I find it fun to share my talent and help a good cause. I also feel I get just a little bit better every time I do one of these events.

The relay started in the late afternoon, so I had some golden hour lighting left, but I also had some harsh shadows to contend with. At times I filled with a bit of flash. I also found the “shadow” slider on Lightroom 4 to be invaluable in recovering faces in severe shading. Below, I caught a couple from KZON 101.5 with that lovely light.

As it got darker, then the decision was to turn up the ISO and not use flash or use a wee bit of flash turned down to light subjects but keep the background dark. One of the highlights of the all-night event was the lighting of the luminarias and the walk around the track first by the cancer

survivors. I had done this type of photography before and decided it best to turn off my flash and work with the light off the candles, turning up my ISO to 3200 (I shot with a Canon 5D Mark III and a Canon 24-105mm lens). The 5D Mark III does a heck of a job with high ISO! I worked with an F stop of 4 and was usually in the 1/20^th to 1/30^th range for shutter speed, all hand held. Even five years ago the technology was not there to do this, so I am thankful I was packing the 5D.

Being that this is a charitable event, I am not charging for my photographs. So after editing, I uploaded from Lightroom into my professional Zenfolio site at http://bit.ly/131ORmk I gave the event coordinators instructions on how to download any of the photos they’d like to use. All I want is credit.