On Saturday morning I headed to East
Longmeadow, MA to meet up with Chuck, Holly and their adorable 8 year old Hannah.
I hadn't seen Chuck or Holly - wow in at least ten years - way back when when I worked in radio, Chuck was the engineer at the station. Eventually I left radio, he left the station and we lost contact, until last month when I looked he and his wife up on
Facebook. I found Holly and in turn starting conversing again with Chuck.
It really was great seeing you guys again, and I apologize to Holly for bringing up those three little letters that are like fighting letters [C B S]
hehe - ya see Holly has been working for NBC forever and I wasn't even thinking when we were discussing some TV shows I watch!!!
Hannah is absolutely adorable - I had a fantastic time at Forest Park, it was an awesome place, I really wish we had more time to explore a little more, but I know that Hannah's feet were tired!
This shot was taken as we were heading back to the car - I really like the light poles as they follow the lines I was shooting against - the separation distance between Chuck and the first light pole was almost perfect!
This was near the end as well, I think Hannah was, in her own way, saying are we done yet!!!
I really liked this shot, you can see her missing tooth that she recently lost - well you can't see the missing tooth, but you can see the tooth missing, that's what I meant to convey!
This has to be one of my favorite shots - I changed my white balance to totally throw off the color intentionally to get that nice yellowish hue - I tried setting the shot up so that what appeared to be the sun was blocked by the tree and wanted to catch all three shadowed silhouettes in the shot of Mommy, Hannah as well as the tree.
This shot was a little gray for my tastes and a little flat, so I punched it up a bit and did some cross toning.
The angle of the light on her face in this shot was awesome, I was looking for a decent shaded location under a tree but not so much where the light would be totally blocked or directly overhead, this was great light coming from camera right and split dead center on the tree.
I don't like harsh sun when shooting outside, but this next shot is definitely one where I wished it had been a little harsher to emphasize Hannah's shadow on the bricks.
Another shot while Hannah was walking and I attempted to catch all three shadows, but missed a portion of Hannah, for a little girl she moves quickly!
I got down on the ground for this shot, I wanted to capture as much above her as I could, I really liked how her legs were almost posed as well as her firsts on her chin.
Every once in a while I'll break the "unwritten rule of thirds" if it works for a composition, this definitely was the case here - there was too much "alive" in the background to totally let it go, and I wanted the lead of the left tree branches in the frame.
What can I say about this image, everything was just perfect!
Again, Hannah could be a little super model, she really was coming up with a lot of poses on her own!
I was adjusting my lighting and the next shot looked a bit washed out in color and I brought back and toned down some of the highlights on her face but the light was still pretty flat. :(
Another test shot, something about this image that I really enjoy, not quite sure what it is.
Hannah has some incredible blue eyes, it's just amazing at how blue they are and I really like the whole braid thing she has going on.
I really liked the angle of this composition - I'm sure Bob (
Dudacles) Lincoln will have some comment to say to me about it!!!! I wanted the tree to be in the image and see the lines in the background, this image straight didn't do it for me, so I shot it on an angle.
I had a great time guys and it was great seeing you guys again after nearly a decade! Thanks for lunch at Leone's as well...
-Rick O