Trunk or Treat, 36 “Selects”. Click to see a larger version.

When I first started shooting for a small town newspaper, the first rule I learned for an event was “Shoot a lot of photos and pick the best.”  The best photos were sometimes called “selects”, because they were selected for publication. In the image above you can see my final selection of images in the order they were taken.

Trunk or Treat images by camera.

As you can see from this 3×5 card summary, I took a lot of pictures. My plan was to use two cameras, a Canon 5D Mark III with a 24-105mm lens, and a Canon 7D Mark II with a 70-300mm lens. When I thought I had plenty of images, I left to get a cup of hot chocolate and warm up.  I thought I was done for the day.

Then I decided to go back. I grabbed some featherweight gear (a Canon SL3 with a 55-250mm lens) to take more pictures.  I also grabbed some quick photos with my iPhone to share in real time on Facebook. I ended up with 322 total images.

Nerf target practice with some guidance from the Lamoni Police Department. Click to see a larger version.

Using Adobe Bridge, I went through all of the images and gave my favorites 3 stars. This is a screen capture of some of the photos. Each image is captured as a RAW and JPEG file. As you can see, I took 11 photos of the police department department’s “trunk” activity from 4:37 to 4:38. In my initial selection I gave two of the police photos three stars. When I narrowed it down, for my final pick I chose photo #0305 (third row). I decided a tight shot of the activity had more immediacy and would look best in the newspaper. The following photo is a bigger version of my final choice.

Nerf gun target practice with the Lamoni Police Department, Trunk or Treat, Lamoni Iowa.

The process for the other trunk activities was the same. I took several photos at each one. After I went around to catch all the trunks I went around again.

I ended up with 36 selects which you can see in yesterday’s article. I sent 18 of the selects to the newspaper and the newspaper published 12 of them.

Links

36 Photos: Trunk or Treat, Lamoni Iowa

Camera Gear for Trunk or Treat