Monthly Archive for December, 2008

Christmas Banquet

Christmas Banquet. People we­re tal­king about it sin­ce mid-​October, ma­king it out to be the big event of the se­mes­ter, which I sup­po­se it was, though I saw it from dif­fe­rent per­specti­ve: a photographer’s.

In ca­se you didn’t know, Christmas Banquet is a big din­ner that hap­pens at the end of November. The guys ask the gi­rls to be their da­te for it, of­ten with ela­bo­ra­te pro­po­sals. I was not one of them, sin­ce I didn’t ask anyo­ne, despi­te my friends con­stant houn­ding of me to ask so­meo­ne. But I didn’t re­lent. I was plan­ning to ta­ke pic­tu­res du­ring the event, so­mething would be ma­de much mo­re dif­fi­cult by ha­ving a da­te. During the who­le month of November, I had to en­d­u­re con­stant prod­ding by well me­a­ning friends to get a da­te, whi­le at the sa­me ti­me he­a­ring about the pe­op­le that ot­hers had asked.

They star­ted sel­ling tic­kets on Thursday, Friday, and Monday. And I ma­na­ged to miss it every sin­gle ti­me! I as­ked Mr. Bryan about what to do, and he ma­de ar­ran­ge­ments and I got a se­at! I as­ked him about which ca­me­ra I was get­ting and was de­lig­h­ted to he­ar that I would be get­ting their top end stuff: a Nikon D300 with an 80-​200mm f /2.8 lens!

For Christmas Banquet, we’re ex­pected to we­ar a suit, which I had boug­ht be­fo­re school. I’ve ne­ver worn a suit be­fo­re, and it was a bit un­com­for­ta­ble. But I lived 🙂

Along with the ca­me­ra, I al­so got a flash, which was pret­ty much a re­qui­re­ment for the low lig­ht (think ro­man­tic ca­me­ra lig­ht), and a mo­no­pod, which al­lo­wed me to shoot at 1/​40th of a se­cond and get a sharp picture.

Once I had gi­ven the ca­me­ra back to Mr. Bryan, I could sa­fely say that it was one of the most en­joy­a­ble pho­to­graphic ex­pe­rien­ces I’ve ever had. The sub­jects we­re in­te­res­ting both on sta­ge and off, I didn’t feel li­mi­ted with in­fe­ri­or equip­ment, and I got gre­at food to boot!

I took 414 pic­tu­res at the Banquet, so it mig­ht be so­meti­me be­fo­re I ac­tu­al­ly get so­me up he­re. I’m al­so wor­king on a re­de­sign of the si­te which will, at be­st (me­a­ning highly un­li­ke­ly), go li­ve be­fo­re the end of Christmas bre­ak. Here’s a teaser:

Tomarrow’s my birt­hday, so I’ll be fe­as­ting on ba­na­na bre­ad all evening!