This year’s Dickens Festival at a new location, the Riverside Convention Center, had a different feel to it.

The change of venue, I overheard, was due to the municipal auditorium was being renovated.

Nevertheless my family and I enjoyed visiting this annual affair.

My gripe? Come on, you know photographers always gripe.

But that’s the subject of another post.

If I had one suggestion to offer anyone who wants to improve their portraiture and develop their self-confidence as a people photographer, it would be to seek out events and fairs such as this.

One of my favorite things about this annual event is how folks always turn out in costumes and partake in the pageantry.

And I don’t mean just the performers. Visitors and attendees also get into the spirit of things.

Ask first

I always ask first if they wouldn’t mind if I get a portrait of them.

No one has ever refused me. For all they know I look like a japanese tourist with a camera.

But I’ve lived in this city long enough and I’m fairly sure most folks know that I’m a native.

So those of you reading this, you should take note, this is your golden chance to get wonderful images with hardly any work.

It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

Lighting inside inside the convention is problematic for photographers because of 2 things:

• color temperature
• and very boring dull overhead lighting

So I was outside most of the time.

I approached my subjects as they exited the building.

Take the image of Ebenezzer Scrooge.

When I first got his attention, he was standing outside in bright sunlight of the noon sun.

In his hand he held a battery operated lamp that was photo sensitive.

It just didn’t look right, so I cajoled him into going down some stairs to the parking lot.

In the shadows the lamp illuminated and then there was enough soft diffused light for me to use my 50 mm on my Canon 40D to produce this image.

Peter Phun Photography |