Parade on the Circle...comments please

Hey Folks,
Well Saturday my wife and I took the dogs out to University Circle's "Parade on the Circle" in Cleveland's Museum district. This is an annual festival put together by the local museums here in Cleveland to celebrate art, dance, music, ethnic diversity, yadda, yadda, yadda. There's food, dancing, 3 stages with various shows, more food, lots of activities, etc., and the highlight of the afternoon is the parade. The parade features...well...a little of everything really...costumes, floats, stilt walkers, music, performers, etc.. What people didn't see in this parade is prom queens, pathetic high school marching bands and idiot politicians riding thru in borrow convertibles waving at people in vein attempts at re-election! LOL!!! This one is all about the art . It was, without a doubt, the BEST parade I've ever been too!

Now as anyone who's followed any of my posts know, this isn't my usual "subject matter" when it comes to photography. While I have been getting more in to people work, the majority of what I shoot is critters so this is a bit of a departure for me. It's also the first time I've ever shot a parade! I'm also still wrestling with the new camera which on the day of this shoot I had only had for about a week and a half. It did turn out to be a bright, sunny day for the parade (despite the NOAA's forecast of mostly cloudy with a 40% chance of thunderstorms) so the lighting was a bit harsh and there were many things (such as the crowd...the sheer number of people there) that were well beyond my control.

With all of that said, I would like to know how folks think I did here! Please feel free to be brutal...I can handle it. Any suggestions for similar events (I'm going to be shooting at a Ren Fair next month) would be greatly appreciated!

All pictures were taken with my new Canon 40D and my Tamron 70-300mm lens and all were subject to the usual degree of abuse in Photoshop.

#1

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I like #5 and #7 best of all. The background intrudes less in those two and they are not as "busy".

Robert_Lay wrote in post #5734589
I like #5 and #7 best of all. The background intrudes less in those two and they are not as "busy".

Thanks Bob,
Yea, I was having a real problem with the backgrounds as I was shooting. The number of people at this event was simply staggering and it was virtually impossible to get any clear shots without the background being cluttered with people. Being a free event I'm sure they don't have any exact numbers but from what I understand the crowd was estimated at well over 50,000 people...there really wasn't any place at all to get any pictures without the background being littered with people. I guess if I had a wider aperture lens I might have been able to blur a little more of it out but it's kind of hard to say as I was shooting at a bit of a distance...

If I get some time I may go back later with a couple of these and do some "selective DOF adjustments" in Photoshop to try and make the main subjects stand out a little more.

When I go to shoot the Ren Fair next month I know there won't be nearly as big a crowd for the most part so I should be able to get some better (but equally colorful) shots there.

Thanks for the comments!

I'm a fan of the series. You've captured the emotion of what looks like a great party Colors are fantastic.