On 30 November 2014, Raumati Beach School held their second annual Santa Parade and Christmas Carnival. I volunteered to be Official Photographer at the event.
This year, the weather was brilliant, and several hundred people came out to watch the parade and stayed for the carnival. This was a welcome change from last year, when the weather took a turn for the worse after a damp and windy start, sending people scuttling home.
The first video is of the parade, while the second is of the carnival. These are effectively slideshows of photos I took on the day. I have video footage as well, and plan to post a third video, featuring the video footage, interspersed with the photos. Sometime in the new year, I hope!
If anyone is interested to obtaining copies of any of the photos from the parade and carnival, I do plan to make them available. I’ll post details once I’ve figured that out. Note that the photos in the “snapshot” videos are reduced in size and, therefore, quality – the originals are generally much sharper and would look great on your wall!
Aside from the improved weather, another change at this year’s parade was for the parade to go anticlockwise around the school block – up Hillcrest Rd, down Raumati Rd, then down Margaret Rd. I understand this change was made for traffic management reasons, but it didn’t help the photographers!
If you were there and took photos of your kids or other people you know in the parade, you may have been disappointed in the quality of your photos. They probably seemed dark. This is because, as the parade came down Raumati Rd, the sun was shining brightly behind it – not the best conditions for photos.
I hadn’t anticipated this problem in advance of the day, but saw the situation as I was setting up. So I made the decision to photograph the parade from Hillcrest Rd, so the sun was on the parading people’s faces and not behind their heads. This made for better photography, but missed the atmosphere, as the crowds were congregated on Raumati Rd. Once the parade had passed me, I ran ahead to catch the front and capture the crowds, but all the photos I took there required editing to adjust the lighting.
The situation was even more dire for the video I captured on Raumati Rd. I need to find better video-editing software – I can’t edit the lighting in the software I’ve been using to date.
Until I sort out my systems for ordering photos I’ve taken of events around Kapiti via this website (I plan to add a ‘shop’ to make it easy for you), please contact me via Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thekapiticoaster.
