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AFA09 After Action Review: Seven Lessons from Photographing Danny Choo

The first person I photographed at the event, bright and early at 9am, none other than Danny Choo. Lesson One: Remove your lens cap.

I was like "Yeah right!" thinking that BMJ was pulling my leg when he said: "Hey, Danny Choo's behind you!" And turned around to see the man himself striding towards the entrance. There's something about the double-time pace that famous people have when moving from place to place, taking things in their stride. Said lens cap came flying off, clattering on the floor, as I struggled to get into ready position. Thankfully Danny graciously stopped, giving me time to take the picture. And it wasn't crowded otherwise poor lens cap could have been stomped on.

Lesson Two: Don't chop your subject's feet off. orz

A "Behind the Scenes" shot of the headline image for Danny's AFA Day 1 post. I like taking candid shots much more than posed shots so I enjoy this picture quite a bit.

Lesson Three: Always take more than one shot. While the subject is where you want them, just fire away with different settings, with and without flash. You can always review, choose and edit later. You can't edit something you don't have or can't remedy. Like the photos of Danny taking part in the lucky draw at the Cospa booth which I neglected to use flash and/or a faster shutter speed or I don't have any usable photos to work with for this post. OTL I took hundreds of shots and about only 10% were usable...

Lesson Four: Always carry a spare, fully charged battery and memory card. I had to cut back on flash because my battery was running low and that was not ideal given that the indoor lighting was uneven, mixed types and often insufficient. I also wasted time reviewing and deleting photos instead of taking them because my memory card was getting close to being maxxed out.

Another illustration of Lesson Three, i.e., people blink.

Lesson Five: Look at what the professionals are doing. Their expertise and experience often means that they can use their equipment like extensions of their selves. It was really interesting to see the kinds of angles they used to capture moments and create interesting images. Though as an amateur having fun, it's also imperative to be mindful of not interrupting or interfering with people who are trying to do a job well and who are earning a living from it.

Lesson Six: Preposition! Get yourself into a good position especially if there are numerous issues, such as low light, rapid movement, distance, that need to be overcome. Find out who and what will be appearing where and when and try to go earlier. And if you have any access privileges, use it! I could have gotten much better photos of Danny's talk if I had used my media pass to enter the space right in front of the stage - closing the extra 2-3 metres made all the difference when photographing the MCs Calista and Reiko on Day Two.

Lesson Two Redux. OTL

Though if Epi and J159 make good on their threat, I'll probably have no qualms chopping heads off too. LOL

Attempted application of Lesson Five. With some elbow grease added.

Lesson Seven: Practice and review! I'm still not really familiar with what my camera can and cannot do. And I'm the type that learns from doing rather than reading manuals so practice is an important activity for my learning curve. The above photograph illustrates how I had some trouble with taking things up close, i.e. experiencing what my focal length actually was through practising photography.

But as one of my bosses used to say: "Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent." The corollary is to figure out what was right but, also, what went wrong and why and how to fix it. Which is why getting someone more experienced to teach, correct, mentor is always good. It also helps that I'm not particularly embarrassed about posting my badly taken photos. Feedback is always welcome!

Related posts:

1. AFA09 Highlight: Three Beautiful Ladies
2. AFA09 Highlight: Moe Moe Kyun Maid Cafe
3. Zaku at AFA09