Capturing Grapefest

Grapefest is visual candy for any rookie photographer. It features a variety of environments within a few blocks, from market tents to crowded streets to a carnival area, which makes coverage easy and full of opportunity.

What to capture

This festival in Grapevine centers around wine tastings, but the most interesting shots come from the rides and games. This is where you get the bright lights and colors that will make the subjects really pop and add interest. It also allows you to capture how everyone in the crowd is dealing with the sensory overload of a fluorescent festival–you’ll have people who are invigorated standing next to others who are taking it all in, and both are a great subject for compelling human moments in your photos.

I started taking photos among the crowds at the market tents where artists and others sold their products. This gave me a couple of good crowd and sign shots, but the real action came from the carnival section. That’s where the bright lights and the fast motion drew a lot of visual interest and emotion.

What I used

I took a Canon T5i and mostly used my kit lens or a telephoto lens for this. I had it set in AV mode for a good amount of time with my aperture opened up as much as possible to try and get a fast shutter speed. At some point, I had to go into manual mode to work with the lighting, which got pretty difficult in the carnival area. Some rides have lights that will flash, so one picture may be extremely under-exposed when the lights blink off and then well-exposed as they flash on. It becomes the luck of the draw at that point, especially when you’re trying to capture a subject who’s slinging around those flashing lights at what may or may not be an irregular pattern.

One way to deal with this is to use continuous shooting so you have a lot of options, and make sure your settings are meant to expose the moments when the lights are fully on. If the ride constantly changes its color, this will also allow you to have a variety of options when it comes to choosing the color composition of your photo later on.

Timing and composition

When it comes to getting the subject in a good spot in the photo, the best way to strategize with a moving ride is to stay with it for a few rounds before moving on. Get really comfortable with how it moves and when certain parts of the ride reach specific spots in the air. That will help you get used to tracking a subject and knowing when to anticipate a good time to shoot.

What strategies do you use to photograph rapid and irregular movement?