This past Friday, I volunteered with the Charlottesville Photography Initiative‘s annual event of helping lead a photography field trip for CHS students. Each volunteer had a group of 3-5 students. I had hoped we would be paired, because I was the junior photographer among all the more experienced volunteers. My group had three girls who were mostly into being involved in their assignment. I was actually surprised at their forwardness in asking strangers for photos. We had a funny experience with two police officers and a gentleman, read on for details!

The whole trip was from about nine in the morning to two in the afternoon. We had a cool, breezy and sunny morning, which offered several good opportunities for portraits. Their project assignment was to shoot entirely in manual settings and go down a check list that included: candid, stranger, group of three or more, elders, children, environmental, and self portrait.

A former restaurant on the corner of Fourth Street has been gutted to make way for a new business. The front door was open and I snuck a photo of the work being done. The morning bustle of restaurant employees getting their outdoor tables and spaces ready for customers added a nice atmosphere to our morning walk along the mall.

I joked with one of my students about photos of the police officers and she took great initiative in going over and asking for permission to take their portraits. They were talking with a gentlemen and all three of them were up for a fun time. One of the officers had the idea that the man they were speaking with could fake arrest the officer. In the second shot below, you can see him doing just that! It was a good laugh.

At around eleven-thirty after we had some food, we walked over to the CPI building on West Main Street to attend a lecture by Christian DeBaun. He showed and talked with us about posing and lighting an in-studio model. He shared good tips with the students regarding reflecting and diffusing light, which is applicable for outdoors, as well as how to use artificial light. These next two shots, I took in manual mode with custom ISO, shutter speed, and aperture so I could probably expose for the highlighted figures.

My group stopped in the Omni briefly to see if there were any interesting ideas for photos. I captured these palm and architecture images in their atrium lobby area.

Near the end of the field trip, we passed these two musicians playing rock-n-roll music. I found their choice of music to be a refreshing change from the usual music downtown and on mainstream radio.

Later this week, I hope to share a blog post for “Try This!” Thursday featuring a few tips for starting off your garden this year. Thank you for reading today’s post! Come again.