Heather & Co. (#666) 10-08-14

The two couples were at an outdoor table, laughing and joking. They all caught my eye – OK, that's a lie. Heather caught my eye, so I approached them all. Four at a time is difficult for me, as I try to look everyone in the eye as I speak; I had to move my eyes a lot. But all were up for the adventure.

I went around the table clockwise, photographing each in turn. First up was Neal, Heather's father. This turned out to be a challenge and I'll talk about him last. So next up was Heather. She knew how to pose, and automatically put her chin down, getting her eyes closer to the camera. As if those eyes needed to look larger! My determination to get a non-smiling image was thwarted. In Heather's lap was a Canon 7D, sporting a healthy hunk of glass. She is a self-taught professional photographer, and is about to post images for (hopefully), stock photography sales. Her site is HERE.

Next came Julie, Heather's mother. As I turned toward her, Heather leaned over and began placing Julie's hands, not knowing that I seldom include hands in my images. Again, Julie refused to extinguish the smile. I ripped of 16 shots in a few bursts, pleading for a neutral expression between each set. No luck. But only 15 of the shots showed teeth, in this one she let her guard down. I consider this blinking with the lips.

Justin was pretty relaxed, and was just, well,... Justin.

Now back to Neal. When we started, he was very pleasant, but a bit stiff. At first I got a toothy smile. Not that he doesn't have nice teeth, but the look was very unnatural to me. When I asked him to look more serious, he got a hard, forced squint, reminding me of those TV shots of sex predators caught in a law enforcement sting. But when I finished with Justin, Neal had sunk an inch is his chair and looked much more relaxed with the whole thing. I asked for another chance and quickly got this shot. I am pleased, as this seems to represent the real Neal and his reaction to the several minutes of shenanigans.

Bob