Shooting a Photo Essay: Documenting an Event

(gentle music) - Hi, my name's Paul Taggart, and I'm a photojournalist. And I'm here in the great state of Alaska, that's a photographer's delight. We've got big nature and big wildlife, there's so much to take pictures of here. But I'm here for the freezing cold temperatures. Those freezing cold temperatures enable an ice-sculpting competition here in Fairbank. People, artists from all over the world come here and create huge ice sculptures. But for this course, I'm here to teach you about how to photograph an event, and the very specific event we're going to be shooting is a youth ice-sculpting competition, which I think is great.

I think the adult artists are amazing, but I think, you know, for me as a father, I'm so often taking pictures of my own children at their own event, whether they be at school, or a community event. So I hope this is going to be more relatable to you at home. While shooting an event there's some very important things to learn. Strict schedule is going to make or break your event, but I hope you come with me, watch this course, and learn how to photograph not only my event that I'm shooting here, but your events at home. So put your mittens on, it's going to be cold.