Marine Parade, 8th and I, Barracks Row

I was hired by a military support organization (Spirit of America) That takes requests from American military personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa for goods that will help local people, improving relations and ultimately making our troops safer. Their founder was being honored at the Marine Barracks in Capitol Hill for one of their Friday night summer parades. It was quite difficult to capture the festivities for the guest of honor when given about a two square foot place to stand where there's a flag right in front of you (see pictures 3 and 5) and you can't move...but you do the best you can, as always. Those Marines put on a great show, and if you ever get a chance to get tickets I whole heartedly suggest you take the opportunity.

All of these were taken using ambient light. Even with ambient light being field lights and spotlights I was still pulling 1/60 at f/2.8 and 1000 ISO. If you're shooting Aperture priority (Av) , anytime dealing with a dark backdrop with the subject spot lit, you have to ride your EV (exposure compensation) usually dialing in anywhere from -1/3 to -1 stops to prevent blowing highlights on faces and over saturated red skin tones.

I'll post more from reception earlier in the the evening on a later post.