Shooting events is always a great time but comes with unique challenges as there are so many elements that you want to control but can’t.  Lighting is a big one.

At any event you want to be invisible so I always primarily shoot with a longer focal length zoom lens to get right into the action but also be able to tone it back to get more of the environment in the shot as well.  At an event like Reclaim where there is a speaker and everyone else is trying to focus on what they are saying an engaging in prayer it is even more important to not draw any attention to yourself.

Now, at Reclaim one of the really cool things about the Emmanuel Mission Centre that they host the event at is the use of lighting.  The stages are well lit but the rest of the building is pushed into a quite dark setting.  This looks really cool to the human eye but to a camera sensor this can lead to solid black shadows and completely blown out areas in the same frame.

As I said before, I try to be invisible so I can’t tell people at the event to stop moving so I can bracket a shot and I didn’t want everyone in the building to know exactly where I am by firing my flash into the ceiling so there was a lot of back and forth moving and seeing what angles I could get to have a histogram that wasn’t empty in the middle.