The Cherry Knoll Father Daughter Dance was an event that was put on by the Cherry Knoll PTO and I believe it is an annual event that I would love to be invited to again over the coming years. I was amazed at the turnout! And, I had my opportunity to see them all. All 111 of them…
As you can see all of the ladies and their fathers looked great that evening. I counted 23 ladies with the same color sparkly blue nail polish on that night. It seemed odd to me and I couldn’t help myself from thinking that maybe these girls were all at the same sale for sparkly blue nail polish. But maybe it was just that blue draws my attention the most… I’ll never figure it out. But what I did figure out is that these little ladies ALL spent a great deal of time making themselves ready to go out dancing with their fathers and their fathers spent a little extra time to live up their daughters’ expectations. They all looked GREAT! Most of my work was done for me already… I just had to pose them and take their picture.
When I took on this gig I was figuring on approximately 30 to 50 Father/Daughter couples but a few days before… I was told that I actually had 97 and counting! I have to admit… I was a little nervous about trying to fit approximately 100 “mini-sessions” into a 3 hr period and make every couple look great. Do the math… 1.8 minutes per session! It is against my grain to “hurry up and take the picture” and for all practical purposes… that was what I was doing. But I also had some great help and I implemented a great workflow that I learned from Mike Luter with “Studio Styles” Photography down in Jacksonville Florida. Thank you Mike… You are much deserving of a plug in my blog anytime bro.
My helpers were great too. I couldn’t process 111 people by myself in 3 hrs. We had to keep track of every client we shot so that we could send each one of them a 5×7. That is a lot of information! But the tickets were the key to the whole process (I can explain more later if I find more interest…).
Each session was unique. You’ll see that there were several common poses throughout the event but typically I just went with the flow. There are so many twists and turns people can throw at you. I don’t want to say “no” to a client… I’d rather try to find an alternate way to meet them on common ground. As you can see… there are a few landscape compositions and change-ups here and there. But had it not been for my experience and understanding of lighting and composition… I would have had some angry people waiting for me to take their picture late in the 4th and 5th hour. I would say that 20 to 30 of the young ladies there did not want to have their picture taken and were uncomfortable in front of the camera. Out of those I would say only 4 or 5 still could not be convinced (in less than 1.8 minutes) that they were comfortable enough to smile or work with me. Kids are kids… and I wished I had more time to work with those 4 or 5 but I’m sure they will look at their images and understand why it is better to just work with the photographer on picture day! But… I think I made even the grumpy ones look good… so no harm.
Some dads were tough too but I think I managed to wrangle them all in… what an honor to be out dancing with your little daughter. I think that would be a moment that a guy could privately cherish for an entire lifetime. I’m sure that for some (if not most) of these dads this will be the nicest portrait they have of them and their daughters. This is just one of many other reasons why I enjoy photography so much.
