The Galloway School in Atlanta

The Galloway School is situated in the Chastain Park area of Atlanta. This week, Lisa and I were once again contracted to photograph the annual Grandparents and Special Friends Day.















Our assignment was to photograph the children with their grandparents or special friends in a semi-formal fashion. The reading room's red walls took some adjustment with the camera's white balance. My first test on Lisa with the auto white balance function proved to be way off, giving her purple facial features...AAAAHHHH!!!!


After adjusting the settings with a grey card and several more tests shots of Lisa, we were ready to go with 20 minutes to spare before our first group arrived. Our organization on last year's shoot drew high praise from the staff and we knew what we had to do to stay on top of photographing all of the children.

For this shoot, we selected a two light system with our camera tethered to our laptop. Lisa would record the child's name and I would arrange the child with their guest(s) and take the photograph. The images would then appear on the the laptop where Lisa would rename the images to correlate with the grouping.






















We have learned to get to know our equipment inside and out. There won't be any time once the shooting begins. We actually did a full test in our living room the day before to get the bugs out of the system.

We also give distinct instructions on how to pose. The gaffer's tape on the floor quickly brought them to the camera center as well as our learned "people" skills to get the best looking smiles in a brisk fashion. We take 2-3 shots of each group for the ones who may blink without us seeing it.

And sometimes we let them break the pose to have that special moment together.






















We were scheduled to photograph a group every thirty minutes but we only needed ten minutes or so for each group. I looked at Lisa with a smile and asked, "That's it?" We are a good team and I still think I had the easy part today! One person couldn't have finished in the allotted time in my opinion.

We met a lot of wonderful people including a WWII "Bronze Star" war veteran that I could have chatted with all afternoon. Lots of proud families full of smiles...it was a great day indeed! We can't wait for next year!

Randy