When I got the call mid-morning on Saturday to cover an event at Ravinia Festival, I wasn't think much about controversy. After all, it was the celebration for an esteemed lyricist/composer, not some edgy alternative band that was pushing the bounds of morals in our society. Frankly I was more concerned about parking and access.
I arrived about an hour before the assignment started according to request, but for events of such a large nature, I always like to get in and assimilate to the mood and happenings so I can better photograph the event.
Upon arrival and seeing all the black tie's, I immediately flashed back to my time in Naples, FL when I would go to the Ritz Carlton every Saturday night and shoot a society ball... I had to giggle a bit. I ended up finding my PR contact who was great at getting me what I needed to shoot some of the "who's who" of the night. As the concert to celebrate Stephen Sondheim, was about to begin we moved to the band shell area and I got the grounds rules for shooting. @ 15 minutes or three songs and then I would be done and go to shooting the lawn crowd for additional images.
The light was really beginning to fade when I got to my lawn crowd, but after a quick survey of what was happening, I started to shoot an overview before moving into some details. I finally found a couple who was situated in a way that they popped from the crowd and seemed to be into the music. However, they didn't want to give their names, so I cast about to find a new situation. The hard part at Ravinia, is that many in the lawn seats are daydreaming, reading the paper, sleeping, eating, I wanted a nice moment and nice light would hurt either, I finally found this nice couple and their 4 month old daughter... perfect.
Well, almost perfect... suddenly the concert was over, many folks were getting up and leaving and most were confused, my mind set was more like, dang, I'm going to get stuck in all this traffic! You could hear whispers of discontent, at the point I was stopped at the train tracks, I turned around and made a few grab shots, while talking to a nice dentist from South Bend, IN, turns out that was the picture of the night for the Tribune.
Anyway, it was a beautiful night cut short for some, but looks like Ravinia is making amends to those folks.
Enjoy, Shaun
