Grad Season in the Rearview and Ahead

From late April to early June, I was in varying degrees of grad season mode. I shot 22 ceremonies with Village Photographers during that time. For 9 of those ceremonies I got the wonderful pleasure of NOT being the lead photographer. (That's a pleasure as a veteran photographer because you get the opportunity to shoot public relations photos and have fewer things to worry about other than your pictures.) I took pictures of Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, President of the Alabama Public Service Commission Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh, and many other less notable notables. I lived most of May fueled by coffee, fast food, and Emergen-C. I suffered through a pretty intense sinus infection during a week of back to back grads. And, most significantly, I made a heap of money. :P 

Before grad season got into full swing, Village sent me to Clayton State University to shoot two days of cap and gown portraits at their Grad Finale in the Loch Shop campus bookstore. Here's a little sample of what that was like (as I played around with the driver mode on my multipurpose, waterproof, point-and-shoot Pentax Optio W60).

The first grad of the season for me was Jacksonville State University. Jax State has an outdoor ceremony, and we couldn't have asked for better weather this year. I got to shoot PRs on this one, and I got to shoot them with a 55-300mm lens attached to a Nikon D90 (D90s are standard equipment for Village events, but glass like that is not). It was sweet, and I got some of the best PRs I've ever taken. Here's a sampling I was emailed by the photo manager with congrats.

In fact, I was so in the groove of shooting graduation ceremonies that I took my camera and shutter-bugged it up when I went to see a number of my youth group kids graduate 8th grade at Southside Middle School and from Tallassee High School. Results from those two events would have been better if I had been able to borrow some Village equipment, but they're kinda funny about loaning stuff out during the busiest part of grad season--go fig. The Tallassee High School principal, Coach Battles, even kicked me off the field shortly after taking the picture second picture below. That's what I get for being unofficial. I hope the one official guy they had got a good one of everyone, but I couldn't help but think, "Who shoots a graduation solo? No second or third shot, really? These kids have no options!"

Check my facebook page for more on those Tallassee City Schools ceremonies.

Whew! Glad to get this posted finally. In the next few days I should be getting the schedule for summer graduations...happy, happy, happy to work.

Graduation Season Is Almost Here!

The flowers are blooming, the bees are buzzing, I've started my garden, and Easter is tomorrow morning (He is risen! He is risen, indeed!)...It's almost that time of year--GRAD SEASON! Working for Village Photographers is how I got my start in professional photography. They do all sorts of stuff, but VP specializes in candid photography for Greek events at Auburn University and graduation photos for high schools, colleges, and universities all over Alabama and Georgia (plus one in Pennsylvania).

I moved out of Auburn, so most candid photography events don't make me enough money to be worth running back and forth from Tallassee. Grad season is a whole other story. Today, I got my tentative graduation schedule, and it's going to be a busy few weeks coming up. I'll be working TWENTY-ONE ceremonies between April 28 and June 2. Happily, the vast majority of those are two or more ceremonies on the same day, which means those twenty-one grads are on eleven days. This looks to be an exceptionally lucrative grad season for Village Photographers and, by extension, for me.

Having my grad assignments nailed down means that I can also float the possibility of some spring and summer wedding photography. I'll have more about that in an upcoming post.