Evaluation

People frequently describe formals as the night of their lives. A lively four or five hours on any given night whereby food is served, music is played, some speeches made and lots of dancing. In short, in my experience of two school formals, they are somewhat a tad overrated. To the point that I have not bothered to blog about it until two days later.

PRE-FORMAL:
Perhaps it was due to the rushed nature of the preparation stage before the formal. It was not until 3:20pm that I realised I needed to get ready. I had a quick shower, but lost time because I had forgotten to grab my towel and had to wait for mum to grab it, embarrassing. I then threw my clothes on and started to throw some hairspray onto my still damp head. Not a good idea. It gave my hair a really wet and sticky look, which caused me to lose even more time. Once I got rid of it, my hair looked in its normal bed-hair state. Oh well. The rain had temporarily stopped, it was 3:40pm, so I started putting on my shoes - white Air Force 1s - when it started pouring. At this point, I honestly did not care anymore, and I thought to myself "I have twenty-five pairs of sneakers, what is the loss?" Mum decided otherwise, so I chucked on my backup shoes, my school shoes which I had cleaned and polished and threw on new laces the day before in anticipation of events such as rain. It was 3:45pm now, and I probably was not going to make it as I headed out the door in my cheese umbrella (ask me about this on msn haha) and ran into the rain. My jacket was immediately soaked, and the fact my laces became undone did not help either. However, a sign from Buddha suddenly appeared in the form of the 905 bus. It was a bloody expensive sign though, for the dickhead bus driver would not take my concession card and I was charged $3.20 to take a 800m bus ride. Having gained back a minute or two, my bus ride ate too much of my wallet, and I could only afford a 4 pack set of AA batteries for my flash for $1.20, instead of a 10 pack for $2. The store chick said "Oh wow, lovely day for a formal" and I could only agree. Running to the station, I bought my ticket and contemplated how to dry off my completely drenched jacket as I waited for the train to arrive. It was a tin-can train, sigh. I sat in the train awkwardly wet and humid, while texting Rissa about my current predicament, to which she was somewhat supportive. Luckily it was the Inner West line, so it was a relatively quick trip to Central. Once I got there, I made way towards the toilets where I used those high-tech hand driers to dry my suit jacket. It was a weird, but coolly efficient way and within a minute or two, my velvety jacket was good to go. Excellent timing as well, for the tram was already waiting when I reached it. This was the first time I had taken the tram, and I would take it again if my wallet was ever more jolly and full. Sat down, and watched the young Asian conductor guy make his rounds asking where people wanted to go and give them a ticket. He also had a cool coin dispenser thing on his belt, I want one. Sly guy, he flirted with this slightly fob chick by saying something along the lines of: "No concession? I swear you look 16" Sorta creepy, but I applaud his effort. Got off at Star City (for $4.40) and took the lift down to Piamma (?) Road. Walked the wrong way, before finding Jones Bay Wharf. At the time I arrived, a limo had just arrived and out came a couple of the shelter people, those ballers. Took the lift up, and waited in line while looking at everyone looking more dressed up than usual. Before going in, security checked my bag and camera gear, zzz.

FORMAL:
Tiny place. Some would call it cosy, fair enough. The candles were a nice touch and the dimness gave way for a slightly warm red light. I am glad I had purchased extra batteries, because tinkering with appropriate settings had killed the first set (which were on their last legs anyway). Many people were arriving fashionably late and most of the girls were awestruck with each other. A couple of the guys looked particularly sharp in their suits too. Shoutout to Terry and his light grey suit; and Tony Chan with his formalwear knowledge, amongst other people. The appetiser was sourdough with butter. Available drinks were cola and some sorta orangey mineral water/softdrink. Entree alternated between tortellini which as uber creamy and this cold guacamole which had lots of onion. I sampled both and they were decent. Main was not as good. The sirloin steak was inconsistently cooked, with some parts medium and others well done. Can't complain though, meat is meat. Also tried some of Sophie's fish, and wow it was really soft, not in a good way though. It was like playdough on my fork. Dessert was great, the bombe's icecream was delish while the passionfruit tart was crumbly and nice. Also, I played the role of unofficial photographer, enough to rival that of the hired photographer who was shooting with a Nikon D90 and SB-600. In Eren's words, I threatened the hired photographers. This was most obvious when they had put up the backdrop for some modelling contest, and I was standing behind the photographer, partially trolling, and taking pictures. Way to shut me down though, was I really that much of a threat, one that was "stealing our business"? It was a good photographic experience though, I got bounce settings down pretty good and I was very pleased with my photos. I shot exclusively in RAW (but had jpeg backups) so it would require more touching up afterwards. Many people struggled with my camera when I asked them to take a photo. They either did not know how to look through the viewfinder, or the DSLR-flash combination was too heavy. In the end, despite not being a photogenic person, I appeared in about 50 or so photos (well that is what Facebook tells me). A criticism I felt was that people started becoming impatient with me, expecting me to take all their photos. It was overwhelming to a point where there were about four different groups asking to get their photo taken, with some people telling me to hurry up and saying what sorta photographer was I. Rude much bro? Aside from that, I enjoyed event photography and managed to get creative with the shots on the dancefloor, such as one where I was surrounded by everyone while I was crouched and shooting upwards. The DJ was rather shit. Did not recognise 9/10 songs to be completely honest, and the bloody siren/klaxon sound effect he added between (remixed) songs was not effective. The dancefloor was cramped too, which others may have found annoying, but I did not care because I did not dance except for about 30 seconds to shuffle to Party Rock Anthem. At the end of formal, we had our handshakes and goodbyes, last photos and requests to give out my business cards (haha). We then all headed out of Doltone House, after a fairly average formal (in my eyes at least).

POST-FORMAL:
Janet accompanied me because my parents had offered to give her a lift home. Initially we walked with the rest of the group, but we soon separated at Harbourside where the others went for pancakes. I decided to be arty and did some night shots, which most were ruined anyway by the rain falling on my lens and flash. Yes, my camera gear got wet. My umbrella was dropped a couple of times too, I thought I had lost it. Eventually we made it back to Powerhouse Museum, where my parents were already waiting. It was a chatty ride back, between Janet and I at least. Upon reaching her house, Janet's mum gave us a box of mangoes, which then mum gave back and started saying that we didn't accept stuff like that and blah blah. Dammit mum, they probably think we were really rude now. My parents had a slightly heated argument about it on the way home, sigh. Got home, brushed my teeth and hit the hay. Glad I didn't have a V before the formal.

The next day, I got down to processing all the RAW photos in Lightroom. Had a crash course on histogram usage, and touched up the photos pleasantly. Things like blacks, highlights, etc. Adjusted saturation on some of images with dresses to make them pop out more. One thing that I importantly adjusted was the harshness of the flash, so many look a lot more natural. Added watermarks, then converted to jpeg. Filtered down 250 photos to 185 and it was a total of about 1.3gb. The upload to Facebook took only about 60 minutes though, which was cool. The reception to the photos so far have been welcoming, which is good. The other photoggy people have been uploading some nice shots too. I really need a Flickr Pro account though to properly showcase my other work.

Overall, it was a decent way to spend a Tuesday night.