This past week I joined my friend Jo and her husband at an art exhibition by painter Jordan Perkins. The exhibition was held at the Grizzly Gallery and Winery in West Kelowna.
Jordan Perkins’ exhibition was titled Wild Palette, an exhilarating art collection that showcases the united spirit of wildlife, people and animals through a bold, colourful, painterly lens. The exhibition of mostly large (60″ by 48″) paintings also featured the Okanagan Symphony Brass Trio, and of course the fully-stocked Grizzly Winery had all sorts of vintages for attendees. I’ll also mention that there were children, and many people brought their dogs.
I had decided that the exhibition would be a fun place to take pictures. I wasn’t sure if the exhibition was going to be held in a small or large space, so I brought both my little Fuji and my compact Canon G1X.
Both cameras have crop frame sensors, giving me plenty of image data size for when I want to manipulate my photograph with my computer’s software programs. As readers know, the hobby of photography is more than just a point-and-shoot memory maker.
The Grizzly Winery/Gallery was a large open space with plenty of light coming in. And there were exhibition lights on all the large, colourful paintings, making it a fun place to make pictures.
While I wandered looking at Jordan’s paintings I noticed two official photographers (they had name tags). One seemed to be making videos and the other was shooting stills. He would take pictures of people and then check them on an iPhone strapped to his wrist. Gosh, technology is so wonderful. I am sure he was numbering his photographs for people who might want to order them in the future. There was an announcement that anyone could get photographs with the artist.
I doubt anyone even noticed me. Perfect! I could move through the crowd taking photos. There was (with a couple of dark area exceptions) enough light for me to shoot my camera at ISO 800. Depending on what I was photographing I would move my camera mode between Manual and Shutter Priority. Although I would quickly check my camera’s LCD, some people were a moving blur because I was shooting at too slow a shutter speed. I did change lenses a couple times, and the 55-200mm lets in less light than the 18-55mm.
Regarding using ISO 800. There was a time when using an ISO higher than 400 was a concern because of image noise (longtime camera users will remember the exaggerated film grain they got with ISO400 and above). Modern camera sensors can easily give photographers clean, noiseless images at 800, and depending on the sensor size much higher. I really don’t worry about noise and prefer leaving my camera set at ISO 800 unless I am out shooting on a sunny day. Oh, and for those who aren’t intending on making a large print or sending their finished photograph to a magazine, noise should not be a concern anyway.
Now that I have been going through my images I have cropped some and turned some to black-and-white. It is hard to think of some of those wildly colourful paintings as B&W, but sometimes B&W just works.
An event like Jordon Perkins’ Wild Palette is another fun opportunity for photographers to use their cameras. It’s great to enjoy an exhibition of excellent art while walking around with a glass of fine red wine, pointing my camera in a crowded room full of people without anyone bothering us.
Stay safe and be creative. These are my thoughts for this week. Contact me at www.enmanscamera.com or emcam@telus.net.
