There is never a dull moment in the life of an event photographer. One day you may be covering a trade show documenting the inner workings of 3D printers, the next you may find yourself aboard the Bateau Mouche in Montreal’s Old Port, taking a 3-hr tour covering a retirement party as I did earlier this year. The tricky part about covering an event on a boat, particularly one at night where all the guests are gathered in a single room (albeit one with a magnificent 360 degree view of the night sky and passing shoreline and cityscape), is finding interesting photos to take. I walked up and down the ship’s length and tried to capture images both of the changing sky and lighting effects from the boat’s decor by alternating between using on camera flash and natural light (the never-ending back and forth all event photographers deal with).
As usual, being the proverbial fly on the wall, I also had a chance to listen in on speeches given for a man who clearly had made many friends throughout his career. I always find my life quite extraordinary when covering events because I am embedded in the intimate lives of strangers, however briefly, and my job is to photograph how they are feeling when they are feeling the most. It is but one of the many reasons why I love what I do, and given the demographics of Quebec, I anticipate I will be providing event photography services for many more retirement parties to come. I just hope the next one has more than one room to work in.
