ShutterSpeed

the mobile home heaven was one of the best feature assignments i’ve had in a while (courtesy of reporter baylie evans).

when i first heard of the rock community life center, a church housed within a mobile home, i knew that i wanted to produce a multimedia piece for it.

in order to shoot a piece in which we use more than a single image and add sound bites, we have to adjust our style of shooting slightly. fellow staffer shauna stephenson taught me that a good multiple photo piece should play like a movie, in that shots vary focal length, depth and composition since a film rarely uses just a single angle. in addition, a variety of detail shots should be used to support the content.

in shooting this assignment i used a variety of lenses and tried very hard to make this play with the fluidity of a movie. the most difficult part about producing 30 images in a mobile home without making the piece boring was learning to use the confined space. i had little room to move and only an hour to shoot the event, so i needed a plan (or a miracle!).

pastor brian kimzey allowed me to move freely throughout service, which made for some nice images. nothing in my take was too outstanding on it’s own, but the multimedia piece really lends itself to telling a quirky story about a group of people in our community.

if given the chance to re-work this assignment, i would take staff ace michael smith’s advice and use my fisheye lens to help expand the limited space with which i was damned (kidding — it was a blessing so to speak).

Technical Info

subject: the rock community life center church

location: west winds moblie home park

camera body: two canon mark IIs
lenses: 17-35mm, 24-70mm, 80mm 1.8

ISO: varied between 60 and 800

shutter speed: varied between 1/30th and 1/1000th

f-stop: between 1.8 and 22

strobes: no, only divine sunlight courtesy of mother earth.