Megan, 2017 Eeyore’s Birthday Party – Austin, Texas

With sheer wings, half butterfly, half angel, acro-yoga practitioners danced — gossamer fabric trailing and flowing. There were several this year at Eeyore’s Birthday Party. Maybe they performed in previous years, but I don’t remember. They were my favorite this year, which I also feature on my 2017 Eeyore’s Photo Essay, posted yesterday.

Fluttering, changing, spinning and moving — irresistible for photographers. Shooting them with a 50mm equivalent is easy. But how about a 150mm equivalent telephoto? At a razor-thin depth of field? Now, that’s a challenge.

I shot a lot of frames to capture Megan with the Olympus 75mm f1.8, attached to my E-M5 Mark II, which acted as my secondary to my PEN-F. The PEN-F was there to document, street photography style, with the simulate black and white. I brought the 75mm to shoot portraits, which I did. But the dancers with wings, hula hoops and ribbons commanded more attention. Let’s just say, I burned a lot of frames to get this. Lucky I was shooting digital.

I was going for subject isolation but even at f1.8, I found the background distracting. A conversion to black and white helped, but not enough. Finally, I completely removed the background, creating two versions, as you can see. Which do I like better? I went back and forth. But, on a white page, I’m leaning towards the black background.

Which do you prefer?