This is a description of the event from their website:

“The Procession of the Species is a joyous, spontaneous artistic pageant where community members celebrate their relationships with each other and with the natural world.

Created by the community for the community, the Procession program facilitates seven weeks of art, music, and dance workshops that inspire personal understanding of and local action for wildlife protection.

Then on Procession day, residents don their creative expressions and proceed through the streets of Olympia in masks and costumes. Carrying banners, windsocks, and giant puppets, they participate in a cultural exchange honoring the awe and splendor of the natural world.”

The Procession of the Species was named “America’s Best Procession and Parade” in 2009.  It’s a visual feast!

and the Spring version of Arts Walk includes two parades, the Luminary Procession and the Procession of the Species.  It’s always fun and a feast for the eyes!

characters there.

These shots were taken with my Alien Bees 22″ high output beauty dish about 45 degrees camera left and a large gridded softbox camera right for just a  little bit of fill.  Most of the light was coming from the left to create some dramatic and moody shadows and I positioned the beauty dish slightly above to add some light to the hair to provide separation from the background.

page.

test flights.

Luckily one of my friends in our camera club shoots horse events all the time and was familiar with the facility I was shooting with.  I got some great information about the layout and lighting conditions in the facility and some pointers on the best shooting locations.

Now that I had a better idea of what I was up against, I decided to use two bodies and one “normal” fast prime lens (my Sigma 30MM f1.4) and a telephoto lens (Zuiko 50-200 f2.8-3.5 zoom) on two bodies, my Olympus e-3 and e-30.  The e-30 has slightly better high ISO performance, so I put the fastest lens (the Sigma 30MM) on the e-3.  I also invested in a monopod and read up and practiced techniques to hold it steady.

I decided to push the ISO beyond what I was comfortable with, 1600 on the e-3 and 2000 on the e-30.  I love my Olympus gear, but high ISO performance is one area where Olympus lags behind other brands.  I knew the images would have a bit of noise in them, but felt confident that I could remove a lot of the noise with Lightroom and I also discussed the challenges with my client and learned that most of the images would be for display on the web, not printed at high resolution.  She has tried to take photos of these events in the past with her camera and understood the issues.

I tried to use slow enough shutter speeds to show a bit of motion, but also have the rider be in sharp focus.  It was a challenge, but I feel the research I did before the shoot and my prior experience shooting weddings in low light paid off with some good images.  My client was very happy and I felt like I delivered a quality product.