2011 Stone Mountain Indian Festival & Pow-Wow | Atlanta Event Photographer

This is me procrastinating… by blogging! It’s sooooo weird to spend a whole entire Saturday without a wedding, but that wasn’t to say we weren’t busy and having a great time! On Saturday we packed up Miles’ stroller and drove over to Stone Mountain Park to check out the Indian Festival and Pow-Wow. We arrived maybe a little too early for the dancing, but that meant we had plenty of time to meet up with Thierry and baby Leo and also check out the vendors who had already opened.

After a little bit, around 12:30 PM to be exact, the Mexican Aztec dancers took the field and put on an amazing first dance. After their amazing performance I was pretty much satisfied for the entire day! Miles looked on in much amusement as he saw the colors swirling around in front of him. He may not have understood exactly what was happening but I’m sure he appreciated the motion and beauty of it all.

Playing around with my Tilt-Shift lens a bit, the Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II

Ok back to my lovely Canon EF 135mm f/2L lens, which I decided on instead of the venerable Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II as a challenge to myself to use a prime lens instead of a zoom since this wasn’t a wedding. Good practice and I just love this lens anyway!

Betty taking a break from shooting and feeding Miles his lunch on the sidelines:

After the Aztec dancers finished it was time for the Grand Entrance where all of the dancers present went onto the field and had one giant dance circle. I have to say it was pretty cool with all of the colors mixing around and energetic dancers in front of us.

I’m going to end this photo post with my two favorite captures, not because of the energy and emotion in the photo but for the quiet moment. At the end of the grand entrance this little monarch butterfly fluttered onto the field and onto the arm of this dancer.

As the butterfly sat there for a little bit, I was simply mesmerized that in the midst of all of this commotion it decides to land on this particular dancer in his patriotic red, white, and blue costume. As the butterfly sat perched on his arm the only thing I could do was… take photos =) Then just as quickly as the butterfly landed, about 30 seconds later it took off:

And that wraps up my quickie Sunday blog post about Saturday’s events at the 2011 Stone Mountain Indian Festival & Pow-Wow! We rescheduled our Sunday morning photo shoot due to Eid and the fact that it’s going to be 39 degrees in the morning! A bit chilly to wear a saree outdoors but out evening sunset dramatic lighting workshop is still a GO! More to come on the blog, stay tuned!!

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Event Photography Camera Equipment List

Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 135mm f/2L
Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
Nikon D700
AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II
SanDisk Extreme Digital Film

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Zachary Long and Betty Feng are wedding photographers based in Downtown Atlanta, Georgia. View our main portfolio site at http://www.FengLongPhoto.com/ to check 2012 availability for your own fabulous wedding!