Appendix C: Photographic Challenges
hooting in crowds is a real bear. Shooting in crowds is a real bear. And carnevale is not wanting for crowds.
Tourists can be a real pain — we watched a group of “snowmen” carefully arrange themselves around a monument base. It was a good place to be, and we positioned ourselves for the shot. But, tourist after tourist was determined to climb up onto the platform alongside them for their picture to be snapped. We had to wait a long time to get a clear frame.
Background control is the biggest problem. Invariably, someone with a bright red coat will insert themselves somewhere in the frame, completely distracting from the subject. Or they’ll mug behind your subject, even worse. You’ll need to work on background control, constantly. Getting low and shooting upward helps, but eventually that can turn into a lot of same-looking shots.
Fast, open lenses are the usual “hardware” solution to background control by decreasing depth of field and throwing everything in the background out of focus. Sounds good, but fast glass is big, heavy glass. We’ve seen some of it around, but it slows you up, significantly. Mobility is a key, too, and you have to be able to work in the crowds.
Even if you pack the big glass, you can expect to have to do a lot of background “toning down” in either the darkroom if you’re a film shooter, or the digital darkroom if you’re a digital shooter.
I’ve gone digital completely, because of the speed and ease of work in the field and the ability to do “darkroom” work on the road. I use Photoshop to simulate depth of field and to tone down backgrounds. Of course, you can get in the “pure” photography vs. “manipulated” photography snit if you want to, but the goal is to get an artistic representation of what you see (I’ve covered this topic, elsewhere).
Shadow control is another problem. San Marco is difficult under any circumstances — it’s always half shadow, half bright sunlight. If you have the luxury of an assistant, you can have them follow you around with a foil reflector to lighten up dark areas.
If you’re a film shooter, you can try to use a wide-latitude film, such as a print film. But you’ll lose color saturation. Likely, you’ll still be requiring darkroom work.
For digital users, the prospects are tougher. If your camera supports it, shoot in “RAW” mode. The camera captures much more information in “RAW” than in JPG, which translates to broader latitude and more control in post. The huge contrast in lighting in the square makes for real problems. Shadows tend to go black and light areas tend to wash out. Bracket lots, and then it’s into the “digital darkroom” to even out exposures.
More cameras (and phones) support what is referred to as an HDR (high dynamic range) mode: it is essentially auto-bracketing and then combining the bracketed images into a single image in such a way as to bring out the details that each exposure level provides.
Photo editing software is getting more sophisticated, offering control over shadows, highlights, whites, and blacks and more beyond the basic temperature, exposure, and contrast settings. You’ll need to use them all.
Watch out for auto-focus cameras. Things shift rapidly and the mechanism can get thrown, easily. It’s a real tragedy to see a perfectly composed and exposed shot trashed because the auto-focus decided to lock in on the background. Watch the focusing squares closely, or turn off the auto-focus entirely and develop a quick wrist.
Finally, after the fact, you’ll be looking at a lot of pictures with unbelievable distractions you didn’t see in the frame. Later versions of Photoshop can do an amazing job of removing objects with AI techniques, but ultimately cropping is your best friend. The beauty of carnevale is it lends itself to close-ups, so you can crop out just about everything but the eyes and come up with a startlingly good shot.