Trade Show Serendipity

1/60 sec at f/2.8 and ISO 400

Serendipity: A fortuitous happenstance or pleasant surprise, first coined by Horace Walpole in 1754 in a letter that he wrote to a friend.

The 2010 Photo Marketing Association (PMA) show was held in the Anaheim Convention Center, hands-down the best and most human-friendly trade show venue in the USA. I was covering the show for Shutterbug magazine and, as is often the case, various camera companies will loan me a camera to lug around and make a few shots. On this day I can carrying an Olympus E-PL1 with M. Zuiko 17-mm f/2.8 lens when I made this shot.

I like to shoot these kinds of candid shots at the mall too. My strategy is simple: I find a big photo or anything big and graphic and stake it out, holding the camera in my lap and just make a few shots, allowing serendipity to take over. As is typical for this kind of grab shot, it was leveled and cropped in Photoshop to produce the final result.—Joe Farace