Saying Goodbye...

The Abilene School superintendent announced last year that he was going to retire at the end of this school year. This did a couple of things. 1) Gave the school board enough time to find his replacement. 2) Gave the town time to set up a big goodbye gala. Last Thursday was that goodbye. It started off with a reception at the Paramount Theater and then moved down the street to the civic center for a big goodbye dinner. I had an assignment 30 minutes before the reception, but the dinner wasn't until later. However, I was pretty sure the reception was going to make for the better photos. I've shot plenty of these dinners and they are all pretty much the same, little to no interaction between the guest of honor and everyone there, except maybe him standing at the podium.

So, luckily enough I made a decent photo at my early assignment to get over to the reception only a few minutes late. Which was fine since most of the people coming hadn't even arrived yet. I made a few safe shots of him getting hugs from well-wishers. Then I went upstairs and made some shots I liked a lot better. My two favorite shots were the overheads, however, the photo was running secondary, so I was kind of forced to go with the safe shot I made earlier, and then the inside photo was from the dinner. A shot that I liked as well, it was a nice candid shot that did a nice job of showing some personality.