Sunday afternoon was the annual Collegeville Auto Show. They close off Main Street from 3rd street all the way past Ursinus College for most of the day. Trophies are handed out. Bands play. And food wagons sell lots of things nobody would consider healthy. We eat it anyway. This is probably the largest annual local event.
This year I took a tripod, planning to take long exposures of cars with ghostly images of people looking at them or walking by. I also wanted to take exposures at different settings and merge them for an expanded dynamic range, i.e. keeping highlight detail in the bright sun and more shadow detail. It did not go as planned. I had forgotten my neutral density filter and I could not get my Arsenal to keep a connection. I knew all this was possible without the Arsenal and I wasted a lot of time working my way through the Nikon menus and still didn't find the settings I was looking for. Years ago when I was in the computer business we called this an I.O error (Idiot Operator) or sometimes a C.C.R. Malfunction (Customer Can't Read.)
Time to cheat and get out the manuals!
The result was that the best image I took all day was one very conventional straightforward street photograph.
I am so happy you had this frustrating experience because these are great! 🤣 You capture the energy of the event as well. I could look through many of these as each has hidden gems of interesting things as well as the overall cohesive image. Super ell done!
After reading your post and looked at your "mistakes," all I can say is Happy Accidents! I like the brightness and colorfulness and busyness of all the photos. I bet the temperatures were perfect. This weekend was gorgeous here down the road from you. I remember waaaay back in high school attending a leadership development camp at Ursinus Collge. I haven't thought of it in many, many years and had forgotten the name of the college until you mentioned it here. Thanks for sharing this.
PBKC was my favorite (Problem Between Keyboard and Chair)
I like to plan ahead as well but mostly because I don't know what I an going to shoot when I get there...so I carry EVERYTHING.
Intervalometer which screen is that again...oh there it is. Hum...it is greyed out...what is that, it's in Manual Mode...oops I need to me in B.
Now back to reality.
I really like the photos you posted nice colors and concepts.