Be Opportunistic

I was given an assignment from Cross Currents magazine to shoot photos of Mary Piper, who's an administrator at Radio Maria, a missionary radio station. We had hours to get everything done, so there was no time to do on location shots at the station, so I went over to Mary's house to see what I could get.




My first shot was just a typical head and shoulders shot, just in case we need it, taken out by her front door, which had a bit of stained glass, so it fit with the theme.

It was a nice shot, but didn't tell much of a story and she was a bit stiff (who wouldn't be?).

Enter my assistant: Andrew! He comes out of the house, and instead of shooing him away, I encourage him to jump into the picture.

Already, it's a nicer, warmer photo. It's still not telling a story yet. Mary typically hauls boxes of stuff back and forth to the station in her van. So, we gathered up some props and headed to the van. I took the rear seat out to give us more room and jumped into the middle area with my 17-40.



Andrew was still with us, so I asked him to jump into the seat next to me, while Mary was at the rear like she was loading gear into the van. I gave Mary some instructions, but gave more instructions to Andrew: "stick your tongue out, put your thumbs in your ears, make silly faces".



It worked out really well. I got just the shot I needed and I think everyone had fun.