Press Button To Squee - Medieval Times

Why did the medieval photographer refuse to upgrade his equipment? Because he preferred a horse and buggy camera! Hmm?

I was excited to attend Medieval Times with my wife for Valentine's Day. Aside from the obvious night out for her when she had never been to such a thing (while I had previously been a decade prior with my "Little Brother"), I thought it would be a great opportunity to capture some unique shots of the battle scenes and horseback riders from a photographer's perspective.

Even though I'd love to be able to free roam the facility as I pleased throughout the event, I was stuck in a stationary position in the stands with the rest of the commoners. All things considered I had a pretty good angle of the proceedings. Quite a few of the culminating moments took place on the other end of the arena, but I had better vantage points of the entranceway and the royal overlook for what those were worth in style points.

I'm pretty used to ignoring the stares from people as I focus on getting my shots. I'm a weirdo, so I'm pretty apt at shrugging off other people in general. But I quickly realized how awkward it was to take photos with my wife beside me during an event, where typically only the staff are breaking out the big boy proper cameras to take souvenir shots for the customers. I could sense a slight wave of embarrassment from my starboard side every time I took out my camera, so in a rare bout of self consciousness, I decided to take slightly fewer photos during the dinner than I typically would to try and be less of a crackpot in public. Though I went home with a memory card less than full, it was probably for the best because once the food arrived and I was focused on filling my belly, my hands were then covered in the grease from my overdone chicken (probably to ensure safety when cooking mass batch amounts for a building full of people), because the peasants probably didn't have much cutlery back in the day, none were provided to guests either.

However, whenever the horseback battles began, I couldn't resist the urge to capture the action-packed scenes anyway, after all it was one of the core reasons I wanted to go so I wasn't going to miss out on that, oily shutter-release be damned. But, photographing the rampaging horses and heaving swords in low light conditions was proving to be a huge challenge (that I did expect). My equipment was/is knowingly subpar for what I was trying to capture, and I was struggling to get any decent shots that weren't a blurry mess.

I could see the event staff with their large professional grade cameras, and I couldn't help but feel some size-envy. I'd like to be able to afford better gear, but so far that's a battle that's been waged over inches and I'm nowhere near achieving that goal. In a figurative sense I brought a very small butter knife to a fight waged in broadswords. But I'm willing to enter combat with what little I have, be it sword, butter knife, or fork and spoon if need be. SQUIRE! GET ME MY SPORK!

The event itself was fun, as you would expect. It takes a strange type of person to watch sword fights and rampaging stallions and be falling asleep. It would take an utter disaster for Medieval Times to be outright boring wouldn't it. Just two hours of some pissant actor reciting middle ages taxation regulations. Riveting roleplay for children of all ages to education them early about personal finance.

We sat in the red section meaning logically we were represented by the Red Knight. I don't know if it was a a line for the act or not, but our waitress claimed that the Red Knight also happened to be her boyfriend. Fantasy? Who knows. But based on his performance I think that maybe she should be searching for another paramour because he didn't win a single competition or fight. The Red Knight might have been better suited to being a stable boy. It was a good thing no money was waged on that shitter, 'cause my coin purse would have travelled home lighter than the feathers on his helm.

Although I couldn't capture the particular action I would have liked with the gear I had, I did manage tp get some cool stationary photos out of the evening, which was better than nothing. It's always a bit of a shocker to see so much more detail in editing my work than I could see in real life. The only thing I can personally compare it to is attending a sports game, seeing a version of events from high in the bleachers only to go home and see a recap of it on TV where every pimple on a player can be seen in HD. Obviously not that drastic, but the "oh, now I can see THAT" of it is always a satisfying moment. Not to mention the weird tingle in the brain you get while reliving the event in post-processing. Gimme dat nostalgia dopamine please and thank you!

My wife of course was the only opinion of the court that mattered in the end. While her Royal Highness probably would prefer me to be more "in the moment" for these things, she enjoyed her experience as well. Like most young girls my wife has always had a thing for horses ("call me Swift Wind!"), so although she couldn't ride one off into the sunset, she atleast got an equestrian moment to remember.

Maybe next time, I'll leave the camera at home and try to enjoy the experience for itself with my wife during future special occasion outings. But I mean...probably not. If I could get away with it, I can't think of many scenarios that I'd willingly choose to leave my camera in its kit. If it's worth doing, it's worth photography. And me getting to capture these moments in unique ways that are special to ME is also part of the equation in terms of building meaning. That is if Her Eminence allows it that is.