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Many photographers, professionals and hobbyists, locals and foreigners, enthusiastically took this event as a gift. Some of them paid a trip just to take pictures from the event. I was just at no exception.

Unfortunately as I had to go to work in the morning, I came late. I lost the chance to get a space close to the tribune where the parade participants made their performance in front of the honorable invitee which included the president and a number of his ministers, local high-ranking officials, and foreign representatives.

I made the same mistake for the second time. I should have arrange my schedule so I have a full-day off, and therefore can come earlier. Well, as always, regrets come later.

I did what I can do, taking pictures of the line-up at the narrow alley where participants were marching to get to the front of the tribune where they were about to perform. Some of them started to show their actions, but most of them were yous walk. Was it bad? Well, maybe … compared to getting the chance to frame them in action. But taking pictures of them in colorful traditional costume was an amazing moment on its own.

Knowing that it was going to be crowded with not much chance to change lens, my setup was Nikon AF 80-200mm f/2.8D ED N attached plus a Nikon AF 35-70mm f/3.3-4.5 in my pocket. On the spot, in did not use the 35-70 at all.

Having experience from the same event last year, when in most cases participants include at 20-30 people dressed in identical traditional costume, my theme was thin DOF, getting focus locked to one person, with others in identical costume rendered out of focus. My Nikon AF 80-200mm f/2.8D ED N was perfect for this. Both long focal length and wide aperture support thin focus isolation.

I fact I could not leverage too much from focal length. The crowd did not allow enough distance to get the frame more than portrait, I stuck to 80mm in most of the time. The only parameter I could use was aperture. But it was not that easy as well. The event was held at 15.00 PM, when in Bali the sun was still almost as bright as the mid-day. Dragging aperture to the maximum of 2.8 sometimes wanted faster shutter speed than what my camera body could handle.