I first heard about the event from a reporter who was helping to organize it. It was being billed as the "Sleepout for Syrians", a way for our small community in east Toronto to raise funds to help re-settle refugees from the Syrian conflict. People were invited to bring their tents and sleeping bags and camp out in the yard of a church overnight, and to encourage others to sponsor them.
I think she was expecting me to do the typical "reportage" style event photography – lots of candid shots, lots of wide-angle stuff, a mix of people and the environment. And I did some of that while the light lasted, but a Phase One P30+ is really not suited for low-light shooting, and I knew I wasn't going to get much once the sun went down. In one of the organizing meetings, I put forward the idea of commemorating the participants by photographing them in the evening before they camped out, and again in the morning. The response was cautiously enthusiastic, but they gave me the go-ahead anyway. Once the light was too dim to do any more wandering around with the camera, I set up my little outdoor studio by a shed at the back of the property and waited. A few brave souls deigned to get in front of the lens, and enough of them joined me again in the morning that I could make a series of 12 diptychs.
The final total raised that night was a little over $22,000, or enough to help three families. These folks can proudly show off their bed heads and say that they were a part of making it happen.
