The Lodge Banquet is rare among Scouting feasts as being a reasonable length of under two hours.  After many successful years, the Lodge Banquet had become a victim of its own success and was to be choked with “dignitaries”, “award recipients”, “speakers” and other such drivel that drives one’s patience to ruin.

This year’s banquet had an unusual savior: A power outage.  Not 5 minutes into the event, a tree near the dining hall fell and took out power just to that building.  Being the Order of the Arrow candles were deployed in under 15 minutes and the event resumed.  The 30 minute award presentation was cut down to 10 when the PowerPoint was removed and the shot to the head that would have been the chapter video competition was axed.  Overall, the event had a certain charm to it as the generator hooked into the building allowed some sets of lights to go up for a minute, blow a breaker, and then go out again.  I also had a chance to try ISO 12600 on my new camera which I’ve dubbed “21 MP cellphone camera” mode.

The peculiar lighting led to some interesting portraits.

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