I found relatively late in life that I have a talent for almost immediately sizing up a person, and knowing how to elicit a fun, interesting photo from them. Averaging over 50 photos an hour, you might think that they’d be pretty basic. But look at these. Hardly basic! (OK, you could say I cherry picked only the best photos. Yes, these are some of my favorites, but look at any event and you will see that ALL the photos are interesting.)
People ask me if I get tired photographing so many people. My answer is that everyone brings their own energy, so I feed off of that. And it’s a bit easier because everyone who’s in line WANTS to have their photo taken. Not like certain portrait situations where I hear, “I never take a good photo. I hate all my photos!” I don’t buy into that concept. EVERYONE is interesting in their own way. THAT’S my challenge…to get at that core personality. And quickly. Oh, did I mention…about 80% of these photos are done in ONE SHOT.
I had one woman waiting for me to take more photos. (I had already taken one. ) I told her to look at the shot in the monitor. When she saw it she shouted at the top of her voice, “DAMN. NOW THAT’S HOW YOU TAKE A PICTURE!” A family told me that the shot I got of them was better than all the ones they took in a 3 hour session at a portrait studio. One of my favorites, though, was the mom who literally cried when she saw the group photo of her family. (See that one in the Greensboro History Museum page.)