Graduation...

I've said it many times before that my goal when shooting graduations is often to be gone before the start of the ceremony. In the past I've been able to do it because of other assignments needing to be shot. This year I didn't get so lucky, in fact, I had to stay for the ceremony to shoot a photo of one of the graduates for a Life story the following week. However, with my feeling of the best photos are always taken before the ceremony I still got there 45 minutes before the start of the program in order to get the preparation photos. Also, with the push to the web and need for more slideshows for the web this allowed me to get enough photos for a decent slideshow. Besides, I didn't have any other assignments that night and I can assure you I'd MUCH rather be out shooting pictures than sitting in the office!

I am kind of glad I had to stay for the kids walking across the stage. Since I had been there so long and I did have enough of a cushion on deadline I figured I'd stay until the end to get the shot of the graduates throwing their caps into the air. I know it's been overdone, however, it's not often shot here. Either because we've needed to get photos in early in the past or, like I said earlier I've just left early. Plus some of the other schools won't allow it for safety concerns (it kinda hurts to get hit in the head with the corner of one of those mortarboards! As I was leaving I began to feel really old when I realized that most of these kids were born the year I graduated from high school... so not cool.