Another Homecoming has come on gone – looking back, I realize that this was actually my 5th. As I indicated in my pre-game post , my schedule this year was quite different. The day began with a static portrait setup in the Welcome Center, where alumni could grab a doughnut and a portrait with the university mascot after signing in. I had a dedicated corner of the room, which had been dressed up with some corn stalks, hay bales, and a dozen pumpkins. (I give the planners a lot of credit for this – it was a simple backdrop, but it gave the photos a festive, autumn feel, and was infinitely better than the plane wall or window I was expecting.)

Whenever you do a gig, things are bound to fall apart somewhere. In this case, it was the portrait shoot. I was reminded of the comic “Garfield Minus Garfield,” where the lasanga-eating cat is removed from the comics, leaving his owner talking to himself like a depressed nut. Except in my case, it was “have your photo taken with the mascot…minus the mascot.” That’s right, the guy in the costume failed to show, so for an hour and a half I simply shot family portraits against the backdrop. When a stand-in guy finally showed up in costume, things picked up – and everybody looked less foolish.

You’ve got to roll with the punches at these things. Ask around and you’ll find plenty of stories about photographers who take charge and smooth over bumps in a wedding, or manage to re-plan a senior portrait shoot at the last minute, or find a way to recover from someone else’s mistake. That’s what seperates the good photogs from the paid-by-the-hour schmucks. I could have thrown up my hands and sat around until the mascot showed up, but that wouldn’t have helped me any, and more importantly, it wouldn’t have helped my client.

Not all of the alumni got their photo taken with the mascot – but at least those who came over wanting a photo got a nice portrait with their family or friends.

On the technical side, I shot these portraits using a single strobe again, continuing the trend I started with some senior portraits a while back. The strobe had a Sto-Fen diffusion over the head and a shoot-through umbrella, for maximum diffusion. (Both diffusers ate up light, so I had it at full power.) With the strobe positioned to my right, overhead and perhaps 30 degrees off-center, it was was able to light the people very nicely, while still letting the background fall off a little.

The rest of the day was straight-forward. I shot two receptions, both with the 430EX on-camera and bounced off the ceiling, with some + compensation dialed in. The first reception was in a dark, cave-like room, which required more patience. The second was in a very well lit room with lots of windows, which made the whole thing much easier.

I finished the day at a tailgate event, with nice late afternoon light coming down. A touch of fill flash on a couple of shots, and it all worked out well. Overall, the day went smoothly, and I’m always thankful for that. Even the debacle with the mascot wasn’t enough to really throw anything off track – photos got made and people should be happy.

I want to note here that I shot the whole day with my Canon 400D, an older model in the Digital Rebel series. All of the indoor shots were at ISO 400 (the outdoor shots at ISO 200). For a lower-series camera, I have always been impressed by the performance of the 400D – it goes to show that a correctly exposed scene, even at higher ISOs, can look good without using a 5D Mk II.