2010 Asian Festival in downtown - 7 images

[texxter]

This afternoon my family and I went to the Asian Festival behind the Dallas Museum of Art. I took my camera with me to snap some images. Here are some of my favorites from the occassion.

#1 - grab shot of a lovely pensive girl. Someone walked in front of her left, but I like the effect.



#2 - I really liked this woman's look, but it was too crowded around her to get a nice candid - I shot with people in front of her, and I do like the effect.



#3 - The face painting artists were really good, and we had to wait on line for a long time, but it was worth it, as the kids' face art was very pretty. Here is my daughter getting her face painted. As above, I like the artist in front of her blurred.



#4 - And here is my son, happy with his tiger mask - he was a sensation when we stopped at a store on the way back home!



#5 - This was a little girl with her parents, I got close enough to do an abstract take on her colorful Cambodian hat and blouse.



#6 - A lovely Cambodian girl agreed to pose for this headshot. The tiara is a wedding tradition.



#7 - Finally, I went into the Nasher Sculpture Center with the camera and saw this guy taking pics. I kinda liked the shy pose of the sculpted woman and the man boldy kneeling down to photograph her. Just a fun snapshot.

[ChristopherCoy]

Those are awesome Paco!

[Concisus Cognatus]

Paco, if you ever find a way to bottle and sell some of your creative talent I'll be first in line to buy. These are all great photos. And you not really trying, wow!

[TXFZ1]

The tiger mask is fantastic, a wall hanger. Excellent series.

David

[engstrom]

Paco, nice job. I like the effects of the people stepping in front of the girl and the young women too. Beautiful subjects and beautiful colors too.

[texxter]

Thank you guys for the feedback and kind words.

On the tiger shot, I don't know how much it's talent and how much it's just practice. Let me share my thinking process to show you that's more practice and experience than talent. Here are the key elements of my thinking.

• A compelling image has a strong center of interest. Since I wanted to photograph the amazing face painting, I cropped really tight. A 200mm lens helps you do that. Also, in order to eliminate distractions I used the widest aperture I had on this lens, f/2.8, to eliminate the background texture totally. These are choices I made pretty much for most of the image yesterday.
• It was an overcast day, so light was perfect to give me softness and saturation. I didn't add any value to this choice, just picked a spot for him.
• I did make a conscious choice on the background. Because I wanted to avoid color clashes, I picked the bamboo garden at the Trammel Crow, right next to the face painting booth. I saw people taking pics of their kids without regard for the background - as the proactive photographer I like to be, I walked Pablo 10 feet to place him in front of bamboos - the lens turned them into mush anyway, but now the background is more consistent with an image of a tiger - it also provides a good color contrast to the orange.
• I didn't like his shirt color, so I changed it in post, and you can see I did a quick job because the edit is visible.
• Finally, he's got white pearly teeth, but any teeth will look yellowish next to white face painting, so I made them artifically white so that they look natural - without the paint the would look too white. This helps eliminate distractions like yellow teeth

[lsosa]

Poco, which is your walk around lens that you use for events like this

[reader0428]

Beautiful images, Paco. When you stop random people and ask them to pose, do you have a stack of model releases with you, too? If so, are people pretty easygoing about signing them?

[texxter]

Thanks for the comments, Luis and Amanda.

Luis, I prefer to carry small lenses, like the Nikkor 35mm f/2 - but lately I've been shooting with the 70-200mm just because it's an amazing lens, and the ability it has to isolate my subject from the background at 200mm is superb. But it's huge and super heavy - several people asked me if I worked for the newspaper and I answered "I am a freelancer."

Concerning releases I do carry release forms, but unless the main reason I am there is to do stock photography, I don't normally ask for releases, and I don't sell those images. The reason is that if I ask someone to sign a stock model release I feel I need to explain to them what the purpose for the images is, and to answer any questions they may have. It just takes too long, and most of the time the images are not that commercially interesting anyway. When I do find an intereresting subject I give them my card with my website and I ask them to check out my work - and I explain I could do some images for trade. If they call me or email me back, then I explain everything in detail. When I am just walking around with my family I take street pictures just for fun, with no release or commercial intentions.

[Jusselin]

enjoyed as always Paco.

[texxter]

Thanks, Jusselin!

[KennyCouch]

I like the effects of the crowd in you first few shots as well, I think it gives them a very cinematic feel. Knowing the location it also makes me feel like I'm witnessing a real moment plucked from their lives.

[mjoe972]

Very nice. I do like #3 the most. The artist in the foreground makes me feel as if I was there in person watching.