Ok, actually it was Wednesday, not Saturday. But I was always a fan of the band Chicago and their tune "Saturday In The Park" was one of my favorites. But I digress...
My most precious little buddy, my little grandson Hudson, came for a visit this week. He's now 15 months old and quite mobile. And although most of my photography over the last several months has concentrated on the use of off camera flash, I knew before he ever arrived that highly mobile little people and careful and accurate use of off camera flash just don't go together that well. So now it was really time to go back to natural light.
Any time Hudson comes to visit I try to set aside one block of time just for pictures. So we scheduled a pre-sunset shoot in a local park. Once we arrived, one of the first things to attract his attention was this squirrel that, while careful to maintain his distance, wasn't in too much of a hurry to get away. No doubt somewhat tamed by the constant human traffic in the park, he would let Hudson get to within 5 feet or so before leaping away about 10 feet, waiting for Hudson to catch up, then repeating the whole sequence again. Hudson must have chased him around for 15 minutes.
I guess the squirrel eventually got tired of the game because he finally climbed this tree. Not to be robbed of his play time, Hudson camped out at the base of the squirrel's hide out for several minutes trying to talk him back down for more fun and games.
One of the key pieces of information you need at your finger tips to plan an outdoor natural light shoot is knowledge of the position of the sun at any given time of day. I use a tool provided on-line by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration that will let you overlay a closeup satellite image of any place on the earth with information and diagrams to show the position/angle of sunrise, sunset and current time for any date/time you wish to select. I was already familiar with the layout of the park and using the NOAA solar calculator, I knew precisely what time I wanted to start shooting and where in the park would be the ideal location to get a beautiful, warm, back lit setting for shooting Hudson.
At the end of the day though, all of the photographic technical mumbo jumbo fades in to complete insignificance every time I look at these pictures. He's gone back to Kansas now and these are all I have left to keep him close until I see him again. When I look at that little face smiling back at me from my desktop wallpaper or hanging in a picture frame on my wall, all I remember is how much I love and miss him.
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