Ladysmith Parks, Recreation and Culture

Lately I've been doing a fair bit of shooting up in Ladysmith. I'm currently working on a project for the Town of Ladysmith but just s few weeks ago, I got to do a couple shoots for the Parks, recreation and culture department of Ladysmith.

This was all done at the Ladysmith Recreation Centre, and all but the pool photos were done in one morning shoot. The pool photo session was done a couple weeks later.

For a rather small town, Ladysmith has a very vibrant community spirit that I always feel when I am there shooting. The Rec Centre had the same great vibe.

The following photos were all done in a rather tight time frame (4 hours to be exact) so I had to work quick, yet get all the shots required.

I was working with a mix of ambient light and some lighting I brought with me (speedlites), and the bold move of the day - I shot it all with my 35mm lens. I think all the photos to follow were shot at an aperature between f1.6 and f2.8 if memory serves correct... I say this was a bold move since I had a number of different locations within the facility to shoot, including portraits! You often hear people say you can't do a portrait with a wide angle lens... Why not? At least give it a try. I tend to shoot wide angle most of the time anyway so this wasn't exactly outside of my comfort zone. 

You'll see shots from the gym,

Shots from the child-minding room,

Shots from the cross-fit class,

I love this shot. The lady here is legally blind and walks to the gym regularly (about 5kms each way) with her trusty guide dog. I just love it!

  Pickle ball (something I had never seen before!),

 Spin class,

 Some more weight room (As I was running from different activities in different rooms at the facility.),

 The Rec Room - a place for youth to hang out and have fun,

And now the portraits.

Since I was shooting rather wide at 35mm, I knew these would be environmental portraits. Ends up, that's what everyone wanted so we were all happy!

 



 

I know that's a lot of photos to go through, and I felt it too when editing, but I was pretty excited about this project. Not that I haven't done anything like this before (See Parks and Recreation) but all this was covered in just 5 hours of shooting. Lots of time editing yes... But the bang for the buck was pretty hard to deny! I also enjoyed the challenge I put myself to by limiting the equipment I used and just working it to the limit.

 

That's all for now.

 

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