Church Camp Photography is hard……..

Hey Guys! Welcome back…..

If you read my first blog then you would know how hard the CHIN Track Days weekend was. So when I tell you that the next morning after the CHIN Sunday, I got on a bus to church camp, you should be as scared as I was. Running on 4 hours of sleep and a dream, I road the bus 6.5 hours to Louisiana to take part in my third year with River Valley Bastrop’s church camp adventures.

I took a very modest gear load. I had my 1dx mark II and my 7d as my 7d mark II was broken, my 70-200 and my 24-105. I also had my laptop and it’s accompanying accessories. I would also like to shout out my youth pastor for letting me lock my door so no one stole my stuff….

The first night there was pretty slow, I tried to get as much as I could out of the first worship session so I didn’t have to worry about it later as, I was also there as a camper too. I got plenty of worship photos and lots of ones of the speaker. I was very happy about the way they turned out.

Day 2 on the other hand was extremely hard in comparison. This was the first full on site and it showed. The walk from our dorms to the mess hall was really long and the heat was hitting down hard this week. I had one big thing to photograph today and that was the game session. Along with that I had 2 services to cover. The game session was pretty easy to cover due to it being short and everyone being in close proximity, but the heat was beating down and definitely hindered me a little bit. After the second session for the day, other than some small little sessions I took a few photos in, the hard part of the day was over. I could finally hit the hay.

Day 3 was even more eventful. The game session for the day was water themed so I was hoping and praying to not get super wet as I tried to get the best photos. By this time, I had gotten almost all the photos I needed from the morning and afternoon sessions except for when one of our church leaders got to go on the stage for a minigame. The water games turned out to be worth it once I got the photos downloaded, plus it was very hot so the water games helped that a lot. Unfortunately I didn’t get a lot of sleep that night due to the normal camp shenanigans.

Day 4 was a very much needed slow day, there was nothing special other than the normal game session and a spontaneous worship session at the end of the day. Granted the end of the day was at 11pm….. The game session was good for everything other than the fact that it was about a mile and a half walk from my dorm where I was editing all the photos. It didn’t help that by this time I has plenty of inquiries about CHIN photos from the weekend prior and my hotspot went out so the proof photos couldn’t upload. However the photos turned out good and everyone was happy so that’s a win in my books.

Day 5 was a welcomed sight to the end of what was becoming a very long week….. Other than a few group photos around campus before we left, my job was done! I still had some editing to do from CHIN and from the week, but that was light work compared to the week it self.

The week overall was very successful in my opinion. I got almost every photo I needed, I could’ve probably done some photos better. However, I did do my best with what I was given. Thank you for ready and stay tuned for more blogs!