Old town in a lot of fun and we were able to get some great shots with Autmn

Who says you can’t be creative when photographing a graduation?  This weekend at the Budweiser event center I took images for IBMC graduation.  IBMC is the school for Business, Medical and massage.  I have been working with them for several years now and it is always a pleasure to shoot their graduations and ABK celebrations, ABK is alpha, beta, kapa, student who have a 3.75 grade point average, or as I like to put it, much better than MY GPA ever was in college.  All of these students have worked hard and this is the day it all pays off, so emotions are running high. There were 230 graduates who walked through in about 45 minutes, averaging about 1 shot every 5-7 seconds and there are no retakes.  All the more reason I am happy to have my back up camera, batteries, and memory cards ready, just in case.

Speaker situations can be tough to photograph, some speakers do not look up and when they do they are talking, so their mouth is open. Oh and the lighting is almost always difficult.  When everything is working against you as a photographer it can be discouraging, but these are the times I dig deep and say “well… this is whey they hired you.”   Time to break it down and think out side of the box.  First, I always try to do the opposite of what is a good photographic idea.  What am I talking about?  With a speaker it is a good idea to get a close-up and of course I am going to get that shot but why not try the wide angle lens too?  This way I was able to catch some of the scale of the event.  The bright lights, the size of the auditorium, a little bit of the crowd in the bleachers.

Black & White is a great way to drop out some of the unnecessary color and keep the focus on the speaker.  Emotions are running high and this is the best time to have the photographer there and ready to shoot.