2012 NYC Washington Square Pillow Fight

[Phil_F_NM]

I found out about the big pillow fight several days ago and decided I'd go shoot it. I arrived and there didn't seem to be much organization, not even the NYPD really knew what was going to happen, they only knew where the event would be officially started. So, at 3:00 sharp I was standing in the middle of what was soon to be a feather-saturated melee.
I took almost 800 photos with my M9 and shot a roll of B&W film with my M4.
Somewhere in the mess one of the aperture blades in my 10.5cm Nikkor got knocked out of whack so until that can get fixed next week it's a fixed f/2.5 lens.
Overall, I think the event went off really well. There were only a few very minor injuries I think. The worst thing I saw was a photographer who got his camera smashed into his face which cut up his nose and eyebrow a bunch. A little war wound for the water cooler.
Here are a few of my shots. Post yours if you were there!

There's a few more here: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/PhilForrest/NYC_Oct3108/Apr12_PillowFight/

Thanks all.
Phil Forrest

 

[kdemas]

I've shot the San Francisco version which is on Valentine's Day. So much fun!

 

[Brian Legge]

Ive photographed the Seattle International Pillow Fight days the last few years. Most of those events were photographer with rangefinders. I decided to mix it up and take a Bronica SQA with 200mm lens.

I barely managed to shoot a roll. 🙂 Granted I was also shooting at f4 and 1/500th so i made it even harder on myself. I should have stuck with my original plan and focused on portraits with it but I fell into a bit more of a street style. Lesson learned.

Developing the roll in a few minutes but Ill be surprised if there are more than one or two keepers. This event is almost made for digital shooters. I'm sure the guys machIne gunning shots with their SLRs do best.

 

[Phil_F_NM]

I found that the images of the pillow fight I posted were too contrasty for most folks so I went back and figured out why. A curve profile was automatically set as a default in my editing program (I'm using Darktable on SuSE Linux.)
So I did a complete re-edit and uploaded more photos to my gallery page here.

More photos from other NYC events to come in a new thread soon.

Phil Forrest