Monday, January 30, 2012

The Liberty Festival--Homes for Our Troops

A very long and very interesting extended weekend. Thursday evening I met with members of the Katy Photography Meet Up and a few members of the Northwest Houston Photo Club Meet Up to do portraits at the volunteer’s dinner of the Liberty Festival.

The Liberty Festival’s purpose is to raise money to build homes for disabled veterans. We did portrait sessions on Thursday night and then again on Saturday. The portraits were free but if the person wished to make a contribution to the Festival. As a result they raised $112—not a lot but every bit helps.

In addition several members of the Northwest Houston Photo Club covered the Festival to capture photographs for the organization to use to promote the Festival and attract sponsors for next year. I am extremely proud of the job everyone did—except me. I practically sit this one out. Last year I spent two days from 6:30am until after 7pm. There was no way I could possibly do that this year. Even the few photographs that I did take were not very good. I went Friday with the intention of doing crowd shots but when I arrived there was no crowd, just volunteers and those involved in the Festival. Thursday night I was real excited because the attractions and events had doubled over last year’s festival. Unfortunately Wednesday we had an extremely heavy rain in the area which required moving the visitor parking to some remote sites. I believe that may have had an effect on the number of people that attended. By Saturday the remote sites were still in use with shuttle service, but the large visitor parking area at American Shooting Center had dried out enough that it was usable.

Even though there were large crowds Saturday I stuck close by the portrait set up and only managed to grab a few head shots. I am having a problem with the few candids that I shot Thursday night and am going to have to find some recovery software to see if I can salvage them. Then there was falling asleep while driving home from the shoot Thursday night, the canceled doctors appointment on Friday, the flat tire Saturday morning, the blocked underpasses on I45 that made me have to drive north when I wanted to go south, the closed Mall, being stuck in Houston traffic for three hours and running out of gasoline. All in all a very different beginning for a weekend. Thank goodness for Jam and the Houston Photoshoots Mercer Park shoot Sunday afternoon to get life back in order.

Friday and Saturday there were jostling tournments--guys in actual armor. I didn't see either of the tournments but this is one of the participants that I caught resting up after lunch.
One of the Veterans and his wife waiting for the portrait session.

General Patton from the reenactment group with William the Conqueror
A Major and his aid from the reenactment group
One of the vets waiting for a portrait before going to the shooting range
No gathering in Texas is complete without a few cowboys

2 comments:

  1. Thank you sir. I pretty much sit this one out. Last year I was there from 6:30am till after 7pm. Too old to do that anymore. LOL

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