Fort Ross Reenactors

[brucep]

Many of the reenactors playing the parts of the inhabitants of the historic Fort Ross Russian settlement spoke only Russian while playing their parts. All were colorful and seemed to be quite authentic (no digital watches, etc).

Here's the Hurdy Gurdy man:
http://www.photozo.com/album/data/503/ftRoss-hurdy-gurdy.jpg

Inside the buildings was an exposure challenge, as (true to history) there were no lights, only windows, and they seemed to stand in front of the windows, backlighting themselves.

http://www.photozo.com/album/data/503/ftRoss-storekeeper.jpg

http://www.photozo.com/album/data/503/ftRoss-purser.jpg

Wonderful photo opportunites, and I found a very wide lens prevents fellow tourists from being in the pictures.

C&C welcome as always.

[yellalablady]

Looks like a great place to visit. No. 1 is my favorite. The lighting is perfect.

[Leonie]

These are nice photos considering the challenging lighting conditions. I like the first one best but the composition of the second one is nice. I looked at your EXIF data because I was interested to know how you kept the dof fairly large, I like seeing all the objects in the room in focus because they are very interesting to look at. In a modern house I would have wanted a shallow dof to blur out "clutter" but the objects in this room are interesting and nice to see them clearly. I thought perhaps you used a smaller aperture but then wondered how you coped with the dim lighting. So how did you manage to keep a lot in focus yet still use a large aperture, has that worked because you're using a shorter focal length?

[brucep]

The reason the dof is so deep is I shot it at (a true, full frame) 16mm. A wide lens will have a deeper apparent depth of field.

Using a really wide lens also meant very few of the many other tourists show up in these photos, because I'm REALLY close to my subjects. The other photographers have pictures of my back and shoulders for a few moments, but I quickly popped back into the crowd with them, allowing them to get their shots, too. That's really noticeable in the shot I took of the Russian Othodox Men's Chorus (http://www.photozo.com/album/showphoto.php?photo=148785&ppuser=8736). The small room was filled with tourist/photographers, but I went forward to near the conductor's elbow for just a moment to get the shot, excluding the people surrounding the room, but including most of the singers. Then I got back out of the way.

[marshall2]

I really like the first shot Bruce. He has a great face for photographs. It looks like an interesting event, thanks for sharing these.

[Leonie]

Thanks for the explanation Bruce, another valuable piece of information for me to store away and keep in mind when I want to do something similar. :-D

[Skippy]

These are all great shots. The last one looks so jolly. Someone who would be fun to talk too.

Skippy