Own Your Own Zip Code

A few months ago, back in June, photographer Scott Bourne had a post on his GoingPro2010.com website about marketing tips for photography businesses.  Tip number seven was:

“Own your own zip code. Don’t worry about taking over the world. Just try to make a big splash in your own zip code. Put a brochure or business card under the door of every business in your area. Meet people. Give free slide shows and photo talks in your neighborhood. Be known as the neighborhood photographer before trying to be a big hit on the national circuit.”

I took that to heart, and soon after I moved to Cambridge, MA I got involved with Cambridge Local First, the organization for locally owned businesses.  I began taking photos for their upcoming 2011 Local Business Directory, portraits of some of their members and of Cambridge city councillors, and I photographed some of their events.  And now, just a few months later, the business directory – illustrated exclusively with my images on the cover and inside – is available at local businesses and universities and visible to everyone throughout Cambridge (a total of eight zip codes)!

The Difference Between f/4 vs. f/2.8

This weekend I followed my own advice, and rented a lens to try out before deciding whether or not to buy it.  As I suggest in my post Why You Shouldn’t Buy the Kit Lens, if you are considering purchasing an expensive lens or want to compare a couple similar lenses to decide which one to go with, rent one or both of them for a day or a weekend, and see how you like using them.  Check with camera stores near you, or look into online lens rental sites that mail the lens to you, like LensRentals.com.  I went to Calumet to rent, since there is a store near me and it’s pretty cheap for the weekend rate.

(click on any product links in the text to view the lenses on Amazon.com)

I rented the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L since I’m curious how it compares to the Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS.  While they have a similar focal-length range and can each serve as a great walk-around lens for everyday use, they have some differences that make it difficult to choose between the two.  The 24-70mm is larger, significantly heavier (2.1 lbs. vs. 1.48 lbs.) and extends externally as you zoom. The 24-105mm has an internal zoom mechanism, and also has image stabilization (IS).  But a major difference is the maximum aperture:  f/2.8 vs. f/4.

click here to view these images larger on Flickr - from the garden at the Longfellow House, Cambridge, MA

The wider maximum aperture of the 24-70mm makes it a “faster” lens, allowing it to be used in lower light, although the IS of the 24-105mm can make up for that shortcoming.  Visually, the wider maximum aperture allows for shallower depth of field (dof) which provides more dramatically blurred backgrounds, or bokeh.  While I have resisted using the term bokeh in my writing, I can’t really avoid it in this discussion because the difference between f/4 vs. f/2.8 is all in the bokeh.  The above image demonstrates what that means.  It refers to the “circles of confusion” of the out-of-focus areas of an image – their size, shape, edges, and quality.  Both of the images are taken with the 24-70mm lens – at f/4 on the left, and f/2.8 on the right. You can see that while they both demonstrate dramatically shallow depth of field and background blurring, the image taken with the aperture set at f/2.8 shows a smoother blend of the background colors and contrasts.  The images are from the garden of the Longfellow House in Cambridge, MA.

When I got my Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS lens, I chose the f/4 version rather than the f/2.8 IS version because it was smaller and significantly lighter, and I knew I would not dread using it on a long day of shooting as I feared I would with the 3.24 pound f/2.8 IS version.  Three and a quarter pounds! (According to the Canon website.  I’m not sure if that is right – Amazon says it is 2.9 lbs.)  Anyway, that kind of weight might be an important consideration for someone traveling with a lens or using it for consecutive full days of shooting.  I know it is a consideration for me.  So, even though I got the f/4, I’ve wondered what I have been missing image-wise by not being able to open up to f/2.8.  So I took these two images with the 24-70mm to see the difference, and it is more considerable than I had thought it would be.

I was very pleased with the 24-70mm.  I had been concerned that I would want more range on the telephoto end, and I did end up with a lot of images taken at the 70mm focal length, but I didn’t usually feel like I needed or wanted to zoom in any closer.  It really is a great range for everyday use.  It is a big lens, but other than the weight, it feels great and is comfortable to use.  You can’t deny its image quality, the bokeh is wonderful, but the weight is still a consideration and may dissuade me in the end.

Here is a great site at The-Digital-Picture.com to compare lenses, side by side.  You can compare test images taken at various focal lengths and apertures.  I will leave all the pixel peeping and debating of the merits of the 24-70mm vs. the 24-105mm to the forums, and just share a few photos I took with the 24-70mm at the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the adjoining Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.  All the images are hand-held, without flash, in very low lighting.  The leaves and flowers in the images below are from the world renowned glass flower collection.  Yes, they are made entirely of glass!  Even those fall leaves.  It is mind boggling, especially when viewing them in person.

If you are considering buying any of these lenses from Amazon.com, please use the links above, and I will get a little something for referring you.  Or use this link to go directly to Amazon.com.  I appreciate your support!

glass leaves above, glass flowers below.  yes 100% made of glass!

Buy a Canon or Nikon dSLR and get a Free eBook User’s Guide!

Sorry, this offer has expired and is no longer in effect. But please have a look at my dSLR camera user’s guides on my Full Stop e-book website or click the covers below:

 

Deconstructing the Shot – Photo 2

This post is the second in an occasional series in which I describe the making of a photograph, from both a technical and artistic standpoint.  I’ll go through the camera settings and why they were chosen, as well as the thought processes going through my head regarding composition and the creation of the image.  These types of posts will be concrete examples of a previous post of mine called How Pros Photograph, which describes the various decisions that may be going through a photographer’s head as they work a scene and make photos.  The first post in this series can be read here.

This one can be called the Shutter Speed Edition, as you will learn below.  For those looking to learn about Depth of Field, please view Deconstructing the Shot post 3, the Aperture Edition rather than this post.

The Photo: The photo I’ve selected for this example is one I took in Pucallpa, Peru in July 2008.  Pucallpa is a town located along the Ucayali River, a tributary of the Amazon.  Though it is a relatively small town, it has a bustling (though undeveloped) port which receives food and goods from deeper in the Amazon region.  The streets of Pucallpa buzz with the constant traffic of moto-taxis, the motorcycle rickshaws found in much of Peru and the developing world.  I had a few days before hopping on a slow boat to Iquitos, so I roamed the town looking for photo opportunities.  I’ve created some strips of photos to show a selection of images as I worked this particular scene:

The Process: I wanted to capture the ubiquitous motion and activity of the traffic in the streets of Pucallpa, which is dominated by the moto-taxis.  The best way to do this, I decided, was to capture the blur of motion as the traffic sped by.  I was using a Canon Rebel XT with a 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II lens.  I selected a busy and interesting intersection and set the camera to Shutter Priority mode (Tv on Canon, S on Nikon).  This is so I could control the shutter speed and set it to a slow shutter speed so that fast motion would become a blur.  I initially chose a shutter speed of 1/50, but that wasn’t resulting in enough blur, so through quick experimentation, I settled on 1/20.  This shutter speed, 1/20 of a second, is very slow for hand-holding.  While the motion will blur, it is difficult at this shutter speed to hold it still enough (without a tripod) so that the background will remain sharp and not cause unwanted blur due to camera shake in the in-focus areas.  I now actually recommend using 1/30 as a starting point for creating motion blur.  But even with 1/30, you have to pay attention to holding the camera very still.  I selected ISO 100 since it was a very bright, sunny afternoon, and because I atypically needed to work in a slow shutter speed range.

I initially took some images of the traffic crossing the intersection, trying to capture many vehicles at once to accentuate my idea of the busy traffic.  However, I soon decided to face directly across the street and capture the moto-taxis as they crossed my field of view.  I set the Drive Mode to continuous so that I could fire off a series of photos each time the light turned green and the traffic crossed my view.  The Rebel XT has a slow maximum rate of 3 frames per second (fps) but many current cameras will allow a more useful and faster frame rate of 5 or 6, or even 8 fps.  White Balance was set on Auto, though Sunny setting would have worked well too.  Metering was set on Evaluative.  However, since the lighting and the scene remained relatively consistent, it would not have been a mistake to determine the best exposure then switch the camera to Manual mode, M, and set that exposure for all the photos.

In Shutter Priority mode, you choose the shutter speed and the camera will choose the aperture, based on the ISO setting.  The aperture setting for this photo wasn’t too important to me.  Since the foreground was going to be a blur of motion, it was best that the background was relatively in focus.  So a narrow aperture providing relatively deep depth of field, such as f/11 or f/16 would be fine.  Based on the ISO and the amount of light, the camera was selecting apertures ranging from f/8 to f/22 for various images, with most of them somewhere in the middle of that range.  Also, since the subject was going to be a blur of motion, there was no point in trying to focus on it.  The motion would most likely confuse the auto-focus system anyway, so I switched the lens to MF, Manual Focus, and focused on the sign post directly across the street from me.  Though I may have zoomed slightly in or out with the lens at first, I settled on a focal length of 50mm and left it there.

While the subject of this composition is the blur of the vehicles, the background also comes into play, and as with every image, can not be ignored.  The street and trees beyond created a nice background, both showing the urban context of the scene and blocking out what could have been a large area of dull, light sky.  The yellow sign post, where I focused, added a nice element of color.  You can see that the yellow post and the curb of the far side of the street lie near the “rule of thirds” lines.  This isn’t an accident, and they were consciously placed there to help create an interesting composition.  This was done through squatting or kneeling in order to place myself at the desired point of view and still capture most of the vehicles from top to bottom.

I took a series of 59 images over a period of nearly 8 minutes, with 48 of the images being the straight-on images in a period of just 2 minutes.  I used a horizontal composition since that worked best with the blur of motion of the traffic.  I typically just held down the shutter button as the traffic started to go by, just after the stoplight changed.  By doing that I captured a variety of interesting images, with the moto-taxis blurring by in all types of configurations.  In a situation like this, luck and chance play a big part.  The photographer must control all the elements they can through composition, framing, and camera settings, and then allow the scene to play out in front of them.  So I would actually call this controlled chance.  There were a few very nice results, and I settled on an frame from the middle of the series, IMG_3306, as my chosen image.  In addition to showing the blur of the moto-taxi, it also captured some pedestrians across the street and fully showed the one-way sign, which I thought were nice additions to the image.  With these added elements, it becomes more of an overall “portrait” of the city streets of Pucallpa rather than just an image about motion.

The Post Process: To create the final image, I adjusted the color and contrast in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and in Photoshop (PS).  As you can see by the unprocessed images, the color and contrast is quite dull and lifeless straight out of the camera.  The original file was a JPEG file, and the Picture Style was Standard (I hadn’t started using RAW yet).  In ACR, the Blacks were increased to 10 to give it the nice deep blacks, which helps to make the bright colors pop even more.  A Fill setting of 10 was used to lighten up the foreground moto-taxi a bit, and Clarity +15 and Vibrance +10 were used to give it some, well, clarity and vibrance.  In Photoshop, the contrast was increased with Curves using a setting probably close to Medium Contrast.  I typically don’t make the blacks so black and purposefully lose detail in the shadows, but I was experimenting with this look and it seemed to work well here.  The image was sharpened using Unsharpen Mask, probably at Amount: 85 or 100, Radius: 1, and Threshold: 4.  Now I would try being more aggressive with the Amount and Radius, but I am not sure the 8MP JPEG file from the Rebel XT would withstand much more without starting to degrade.  Somewhere along the way, either in ACR or PS, the color temperature was also changed to warm it up a little, which is more in keeping with the afternoon sun of the Amazon region.  I didn’t crop the image at all, as you can see.  It is best to try to get the framing you want when you capture the photo, but I am somewhat surprised myself that I did it so well.  I once had a photo teacher in college who complimented me on my ability to capture the frame and not need to crop.  I just thought that was the way one was supposed to take a photo!  Thankfully I still sometimes demonstrate that ability.

The Final Image:

Canon Rebel XT, 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II at 50mm, ISO 100, f/14, 1/20s

The Lesson: We should always learn from our photos, so that next time we are in a similar situation, we can create an even better image.  Some improvements I could have made to this image include using a neutral density (ND) filter or a polarizing filter.  This would have given me more control over the range of aperture settings that the camera selected and allowed for a wider-open aperture so that the far distance became more of a blur.  A polarizing filter would have also helped to darken the bits of sky that appear.  And as I mentioned above, a shutter speed of 1/30 would have still created the blur, but would have been slightly easier to hand-hold without creating unwanted blur in the background due to camera shake.

This image was chosen to be used on the cover of the programs for the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s Nuevo Latino Festival in 2009.  Incredibly, the near square crop of the image works really well too:

So hopefully you can see from this explanation and from my previous posts that photographs don’t necessarily just happen.  They are created through a combination of thought processes, a series of decisions, and the application of camera settings based on these decisions and on the situation at hand – plus some controlled chance!

Your World 60D eBook Now Available!

My eBook user’s guide and tutorial on using the new Canon 60D, Your World 60D – The Still Photographer’s Guide to Operation and Image Creation is now available!  Learn how to use the 60D, quickly and competently, to create the types of images you want to capture. The Canon 60D is an advanced tool, and this guide explains how to begin to use it to its full potential.

Click here to learn more about and purchase the Your World 60D.

You can preview it at the following link. The preview shows the Table of Contents and Introduction, a sample Menu Settings page, a sample Custom Functions Settings page, and a sample text page.

http://www.dojoklo.com/writing/Your_World_60D-Preview.pdf

Purchase information is below.

Purchase Your World 60D through PayPal here!
This version is in PDF format, 8.5″x11″, which can be read on your computer screen, printed on your printer, and can also be read on the iPad.
$11.99 on Sale now: $10.99
(plus 6.25% sales tax for residents of Massachusetts)
Secure payment with PayPal or Credit card

or
_____________________

The Kindle Edition is available at Amazon.com, the Nook Version is available at BarnesandNoble.com, and the iPad version available on iTunes/ iBooks.  See this page for direct links to the other versions.

Begin to master your Canon 60D and learn to use it to its full capabilities!

(Since my subsequent guides have been called Canon T3i Experience and Canon 7D Experience, this one should perhaps be called Canon 60D Experience.)

Humane Society’s All Animals Magazine

If you happen to receive the Humane Society’s All Animals magazine, be sure to check out the section on young animal activists.  Last month I was fortunate to meet and photograph an amazing and motivated young animal activist, Ayna Agarwal (and her dogs).  One of my portraits of her and Muffy illustrates her profile in the Sept./Oct. 2010 edition of All Animals, and another image was used in the table of contents.

You can read her story here, or read the entire article on the HSUS website here.

Nikon D7000 vs. Canon 60D

I am moving my blog from WordPress to my own website.  This post comparing the Nikon D7000 vs. Canon 60D can now be read here:

http://blog.dojoklo.com/2010/09/17/canon-60d-vs-nikon-d7000/

Thanks for following me to my new blog home!

Image of a Canon 60D taken with a Nikon D7000 and Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 – by the author

Image of a Nikon D7000 taken with a Canon 60D and EF 100m f/2.8 Macro lens – by the author

Your World 60D – Canon 60D User’s Guide and Tutorial

Looking for a Canon EOS 60D book or tutorial to help you learn and begin to master your new dSLR?  I’ve written an eBook user’s guide for the Canon 60D, called Your World 60D – The Still Photographer’s Guide to Operation and Image Creation. Learn to use the Canon 60D quickly and competently, and improve your photography and capture better images. The 60D is an advanced tool, and this guide explains how to start to use it to its full potential.  Begin to take control of your camera, the image taking process, and the photos you create.

This instant download eBook guide is for those who wish to get more out of their 60D, and go beyond Auto or Program mode and shoot in Aperture Priority (Av) mode and Shutter Priority (Tv) mode.  It covers basic dSLR camera functions and exposure concepts for those new to digital SLR photography, plus it also explains more advanced camera controls and operation, such as using the various metering modes and exposure compensation for correct exposure of every image, controlling autofocus modes and focus points for sharp focus of still or moving subjects, and creating dramatic depth of field for professional looking photographs.  Learning to get the most out of a dSLR can involve a steep learning curve, and I believe my book can help you speed up that process.

See below for how to purchase.

Your World 60D is a text-only PDF guide that builds upon the information offered by the camera’s manual and focuses on the essential functions and settings for real world 60D use.  In addition to covering the various settings, functions and controls of the Canon 60D, its lessons explain when and why to use them. It also describes every Menu setting and Custom Function setting, with recommended settings, including Movie Mode menus.  Note that it focuses on still photography and not video except for a brief introduction to menus and important video settings to get you started.

Sections include:

• Setting Up Your 60D – All of the Menu settings and Custom Function (C.Fn) settings, including movie mode menus, with brief descriptions and recommended settings for practical, everyday use.  Set up and customize the advanced features of the 60D to work best for the way you photograph.
• Aperture Priority Mode (Av) and Shutter Priority Mode (Tv) – How and when to use them to create dramatic depth of field or to freeze or express motion.
• Auto Focusing Modes and Drive Modes – How they differ, how and when to use them to capture sharp images of both still and moving subjects. Also how and when to use focus lock and back-button focusing.
• Exposure Metering Modes – How they differ, how and when to use them for correct exposures in every situation. Also how to make use of exposure lock.
• Histograms, Exposure Compensation, Bracketing, and White Balance – Understanding and using these features for adjusting to the proper exposure in challenging lighting situations.
• Composition – Brief tips, techniques, and explanations, including the creative use of depth of field.
• The Image Taking Process – A descriptive tutorial for using the settings and controls you just learned to take photos.
• Photography Accessories – The most useful accessories for day-to-day and travel photography
• Introduction to Video Settings – Some basic settings to get you started

This digital field guide to the Canon EOS 60D is a 45 page, PDF format text-only document, full of helpful information applicable to the new and intermediate dSLR photographer – to turn you into an advanced digital photographer!

Purchase Your World 60D through PayPal here! (or click the PayPal or Credit card check-out button below)
This version is in PDF format, text-only, 8.5″x11″, which can be read on your computer screen, printed on your printer, taken with you on your laptop, and can also be read on the iPad.

Format: PDF – Instant Download
Page Count: 45
Price: $11.99 Now on sale $10.99
(plus 6.25% sales tax for residents of Massachusetts)
Secure payment with PayPal or Credit card

or

__________

Other versions are available, including the Kindle Edition on Amazon.com, the Nook Edition online at Barnes and Noble, and the iPad version on iTunes/iBooks – see this page for direct links to the other versions.

You can preview Your World 60D at the following link. The preview shows:
-the Table of Contents
-the Introduction
-a sample Menu Settings page
-a sample Custom Functions Settings page
-and a sample text page.

Preview: http://www.dojoklo.com/writing/Your_World_60D-Preview.pdf

Begin to master your Canon 60D and start to use it to its full capabilities!

What Readers are Saying about Doug Klostermann’s dSLR User’s Guides:

This book, together with the manual that came with your camera, is all you need to start discovering all the potential of this camera.
-Max M.

It’s the first guide I’ve read which has taken me through all the settings in an understandable way. I now feel that I have control over the camera.
-Peter S.

I would recommend this to anyone who wants to get a quick start to using their camera.  Manuals are nice, but this eBook highlights the important information and gives a quick easy to understand explanation of most all of the functions and controls.
-Ray M.

I found the (camera’s) manual good for understanding how to set things up but not much on the why – this book really focuses on the “why.”  Prior to reading the book I was setting up my metering on Spot Metering thinking it was much better than Matrix (Evaluative) – the guide helped me understand why to use specific settings for specific needs.  The Custom Settings sections helps to make firm decisions on how to apply settings by understanding the usage of each in addition to knowing how to set them up.  I would like to thank you for saving me time – now I’m confident that my camera is well tuned!
-Benoit A.

This manual is a clearly written, concise and useful explanation of the rationale for the seemingly infinite and often confusing settings options.  Used in conjunction with the (camera’s) manual I feel a bit more confident in understanding how to at last proceed in getting better photographs.
-WLS

Your World 60D was originally, briefly titled Real World 60D.  It is the same eBook.  If you use the Canon Rebel T2i/EOS 550D, or Canon Rebel T3i/EOS 600D have a look at my eBooks for those camera, T2i Experience and Canon T3i Experience.

Search Terms, Questions and Answers Part 2

This is part two of an ongoing series.  Over the last several months I’ve collected some of the search terms that led people to read my blog.  I’m presenting several of them here, along with brief but informative answers.  This is part 2 of this series.  The next ones in the series include questions on the Canon 7D specifically, and then on lenses. Here was part one.

What is humanitarian photography?
Humanitarian photography can be defined as the photography of international NGOs (non-governmental organizations), humanitarian aid, and non-profit organizations.  These include organizations that focus on diverse issues including from health, development, indigenous rights, and children.  Photographers make images of these organizations’ work in the field, projects, staff, and clients or the populations that are served.  These images can be for documentation, to tell a story, for printed and web use such as marketing, fundraising, reports, or training publications, for presentations, or many other uses.

A humanitarian photographer, however, can also be a photographer who wishes to tell the story of the human condition through their photography, and this does not need to necessarily involve the work of an NGO.  They can be a photojournalist, such as Ami Vitale, or a travel, world, and culture photographer who depicts the world through the people who inhabit it.

Humanitarian photographer / photography
That’s me!  Welcome to my site.  Also be sure to check out Heber Vega’s website where he has the 10Q interview series with a number of humanitarian photographers.  And be sure to check out Karl Grobl, who is an inspiration to all of us humanitarian photographers.

How to become a humanitarian photographer / Getting into humanitarian photography
First, work at becoming a skilled photographer.  Then begin to learn about humanitarian issues and what humanitarian aid organizations do.  I address that in this post:
http://dojoklo.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/becoming-a-humanitarian-photographer-part-ii/

Then, have a look at these posts:
http://dojoklo.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/how-to-start-out-as-a-humanitarian-photographer/

http://dojoklo.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/after-the-self-assignment/

How much do humanitarian photographers make? / Salary for humanitarian photographer / How can I make a lot of money being a humanitarian photographer?
While there are some humanitarian photographers who work on staff with NGOs, these types of jobs are few and far between.  So there really is no such thing as a salary for humanitarian photographers.  In fact, at this time, there really isn’t a salary for most types of photographer except for the few that still work on staff at newspapers or a few other places, and this number is dwindling every day.  For the most part, humanitarian photographers are freelance photographers who must seek out their own assignments.  What they earn depends on how hard they work at this.  As with any type of vocational photographer, working as a humanitarian photographer involves something like 10% photography and 90% business and seeking out work.  Sounds dreadful, right, but just read about any other photographer discussing business and you will see the same thing.  How to make a lot of money as any type of photographer?  I haven’t figured that one out yet.  Maybe work as a dentist by day.

Humanitarian photography career / jobs / opportunities
As I said above, this doesn’t really exist except in the way you create it yourself.  Really.  It is 100% up to you to make it a reality.  There is no one path to follow, no correct course to take (although there are countless incorrect moves one could make).  It is all pretty much up to you to determine through the amount of effort and dedication you put into it.  One place to start is to read David DuChemin’s Visionmongers.  This is one of the few guides out there for becoming a vocational photographer, and luckily for you, he began as a humanitarian photographer himself.  However, it is far from containing all the answers.  He leaves much unsaid that you have to learn the hard way.

Humanitarian photography ethics / Guidelines for NGO photojournalists
One good place to start is to read the NPPA Code of Ethics.  I address that and discuss it a little further in this post:
http://dojoklo.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/working-as-a-humanitarian-photographer-ethics-and-images/

You can also look at the countless writings about journalism ethics, photojournalism ethics, and media ethics.  Much of those subjects will directly apply to humanitarian photography.

How to shoot humanitarian pictures
However you want!  Create your own style, tell your own story!  However, if you really don’t know where to start, have a look a photojournalism and how to work and shoot as a photojournalist.  You can learn this through reading books, and just as importantly through looking at images.  A good place to start is The Big Picture at Boston.com:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/

Also, learn to tell a story through images, whether it is a single image or a photo essay.  How you shoot depends on your goals as well.  If you are working for an NGO, they may want photos in a certain style or which serve a certain need.  If you are shooting a documentary series for yourself, you may choose your subjects, compositions, and style very differently.

David DuChemin on being a humanitarian photographer
I get this search every day!  Perhaps he has set up an automatic tracking search to see where he is mentioned each day.

Cambridge Carnival 2010

Cambridge Carnival 2010 in Cambridge, MA:  the music, dancing, and vibrant colors of the Caribbean, conveniently found down the street from me today.

All of these images were shot using a Canon 50D with the 70-200mm f/4L IS lens.

There is a very recent and timely post on PhotoFocus about photographing parades.  It has some useful advice.  I would add to that a few more:

-Arrive early and work your way into the assembly area, where there is often a sense of tension and pent-up excitement.  Capture photos of participants getting ready and chatting, musicians practicing, and posed portraits of individuals or groups who are eager to have their photo taken in their outfits or costumes.

-During the parade, always be aware of your image backgrounds.  Position yourself so that you have light or dark backgrounds as appropriate, or crowds of faces.  Be sure you have clean, or at least not distracting backgrounds.  Use wide open apertures to make the backgrounds blurry and less distracting.  Some distracting backgrounds I had to avoid at this event included a bright yellow rental truck with the name across it and porta-potties.  Keep your eyes open for these types of things.  Changing your position and point of view can make the street, some trees, or the sky become your background.

-Be very aware of the light and where it is coming from.  Position yourself on the best side of the street so that you can capture the light on the participants’ faces.  Or backlight them if you want photos with sun-flare.  Position yourself near intersecting side streets where the sunlight is unobstructed by buildings and trees to avoid shadows across the parade route.  Look for mirrored, glass, or light colored buildings to act as natural reflectors which throw back and diffuse the light nicely onto all the participants.  Of find areas with light and dark shadow areas and try to highlight a participant as they step into the light.

-Bring ear plugs so you can concentrate of taking images even when the giant sound truck is stationed right in front of you.

-Experiment with slow shutter speeds to create blurs of motion and color.  Put your camera on shutter priority mode (Canon=Tv or Nikon=S).  Try starting with a shutter speed of 1/30 and adjust from there as necessary.

-If you are using a flash outdoors, do not use your flash diffuser (like a Sto-Fen Omni-Bounce) except for very close portraits.  All you are doing is reducing the light coming from your flash and causing your flash to work harder and take longer to recycle.  It does not change the “softness” or the “warmness” of the light from your flash.  A flash diffuser works by bouncing light and diffusing shadows because the light is then coming from various directions.  It does not magically “soften” light.  You can not bounce light off the sky.  It just doesn’t work.  Use your flash straight on, dial it down minus 1 or 2 so that it doesn’t blow out highlights, and use an orange or straw gel if you want more warmth.  It is much more efficient to reduce the light from your flash by dialing it to -1 and having it use less of its power than it is to put something in front of it and cause it to use more of its power, all for the same look.  If you wish to spread its light, use the built-in, flip-down wide angle screen.  I don’t care if you see the “pros” or the guys with the big cameras using one – they haven’t bothered to read the instructions.  They aren’t able to bounce light off clouds just because they have big cameras.