The man on the left is my friend Gary. He is a former newspaper photographer for over 25 years for the AP (Associated Press). I consider him my mentor. Often, we find each other at the same place within minutes of each other, which we find out when we look at some of the pics that we post daily. This particular day, I ran into the gentleman on the right first, about 20 minutes before Gary showed up, but I did not go over to talk to him, took a couple of poor shots from about 30-40 yards away, went elsewhere, then across a small pond, between myself and these two in this shot. As I am getting out of my car, I notice Gary is all of a sudden on the scene, and he walks right up to this guy, engages him in conversation, and ended up with a great shot, which he posted for the day. Just after i took this shot, Gary pointed at me, as if to say ..... I beat ya! What was the lesson learned? GET CLOSER. I have read advice from other photographers for years to get closer when you are not happy with your shooting results, that it allows you to capture so much more emotion and interest. This day, Gary did, and he schooled me for sure. Maybe this can be of help to you?
@samae@haskar@carolmw@ludwigsdiana@taffy Glad you all enjoyed the story .... I wish I could say confidently that this is the last time it will happen, but if past experience is any judge, it WILL happen again within the next 30 days. Gary is awesome.
