I don’t do a ton of photojournalism in my free time, so I’m not as constantly active doing press work as I could be and, as such, don’t get press access to events that much. Every once in a while, though, I do get lucky enough to get press access to events. While attending class at the Defense Information School in Fort Meade, Md., I requested press access to the 2019 U.S. Naval Academy graduation ceremony held on May 24 in Annapolis, Md., and was graciously given the opportunity to cover the event. This was an awesome learning opportunity and I’m so grateful for the USNA public affairs team for granting me access.
I took advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by shooting video and photos with my Panasonic GH5. I had originally went in with the idea of only shooting video, but quickly changed my mind when I saw all the great photo opportunities I’d miss if I didn’t shoot both. For my video product, I decided to take advantage of the high frame rate shooting capability of my GH5 by shooting in 180 FPS. I really wanted to give the whole event a dreamy look that only comes from extreme slow motion.
I also shot the event in 1080p/24 and 4K/60. I shot at 24 FPS for one reason only, the amount of time and effort needed to go from 1080p/180 to 4K60 was so great and time consuming that it just wasn’t feasible. For the first part of the event I shot mostly 1080p, switching between 180 and 24 frames per second. For the middle portion of the event I switched to 4K60. I dabbled in a little more 1080p/180, but kept it at 4K60 for the most part. My thinking was that since this was going to be a 24 FPS project at the end I could always slow down the 4K footage.
I also shot one sequence with my cell phone. This was the last part of the graduation where the newly minted officers throw their caps up in the air. I decided, at the last minute, that I wanted to photograph this last part, not just video it. Part of me just wanted to have that iconic hat throwing photo as part of my portfolio. So to augment this I put my phone on a tripod and filmed the action in 4K60.
All my photos were shot on the GH5 in raw. I edited the photos on Darktable and the video on Da Vinci Resolve. I shot 1598 photos, weighing in at 38.51 GB, and 66.68 GB of video. I cobbled my photos down to 55 edited selects and generated a 8:09 video. I also did a Facebook story for the first time. Facebook stories are kind of like Instagram stories, and I found using it very easy, but I’m not sure I like my content leaving the platform after 24 hours…I kind am a digital hoarder so I like to archive everything.
I also met a few other industry professionals. I was great seeing and working alongside others in my career field. I hadn’t done an event like this in a long time so it was great to blow off the cob webs and sharpen my skills. If I get the opportunity to shoot this, or another service academy’s graduation, again I will.
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