Lettuce Lake Park

Yeah, it's been a while, I know.

I thought I had finished the temporary job doing the traffic on WTSP. My last scheduled day was Friday. Thursday my boss at traffic.com, which provides the traffic service to the station, called me. A rehearsal with the new full-time hire did not go well. Could I come in for her first two weeks and help her get acclimated?

So today, viewers of Ch. 10's morning show did not see me (much to their dismay, I'm sure) but I still got to go to the station at 4 a.m. and make sure everything was properly set for each traffic report, which Danielle Saar delivered on the air.

Maybe photography will produce a paycheck soon. Yesterday I had another pro bono (read: pro portfolio) shoot. A friend of the woman featured in my last shoot was impressed by the pictures and asked who shot them.

That's how I came to possess these photographs of Lindsay, Drew and their 8-month-old daughter Reese in Tampa's Lettuce Lake Park.



We shot 380 photographs in a little more than an hour. As has become my custom, I didn't give the subjects a lot of direction. I don't want people self-conscious about their posing. I'd rather capture natural moments. My favorite photos are rarely the ones where people are looking at the camera. Digital photography lets me snap away without worrying that every frame has to turn out well.

I used a longer lens that put some distance between them and me and I didn't usually tell them when I was shooting. People are going to be a lot more comfortable interacting with each other than with this guy with the camera they just met. Then it's up to me to notice when to zoom in on fingers and toes.

I cropped these photos a little to perfect their framing but not a lot. A little Photoshop touch-up was all they needed. I was really pleased by the results. Reese had no complaints and her parents seemed thrilled -- especially for the price -- and offered to write a testimonial for me.

Maybe it's time to turn pro.