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Photographing your Reunion

This past weekend, June 8-10, I had a chance to go back to my 30th Reunion at St. Andrew’s School in Middletown DE, and just like the past five reunions, it was great to see all my old classmates, their families and catch-up on life.

But that is not the purpose of this blog post, but to look at some of the things that a photographer might encounter when going back to a reunion where they are personally involved.

Equipment

When ever I am in a group, I am all was asked about what camera and gear do I use or recommend, and a reunion is no different, and the biggest surprise people find out about me, is how lightly equipped I am, and I tell them, it’s not the most expensive equipment, but how you use it, which seems to be forever lost.

I carry one camera body, and in the case of the reunion, I carried one lens and used my camera’s built-in flash (more on that later).

Shooting

At my first reunion, I did not bring a camera, and I had to rely on someone else to record the memories, and thankfully that person captured some of those moments in the early years to record a history.

During the next 20+ years, cameras were still film based, and people would still click and hope when taking pictures, and wait for days for the pictures to return from the developing labs.

Since then, computers are now main stream, and everyone with a phone, now has a basic camera, and as a photographer, what are you suppose to do when everyone around you is clicking away.

Your not on assignment, and you are not getting paid, so…

So relax and just enjoy it!

I know, it is easier said that done…

Built-In Flash

Normally, I use an exterior flash that I mount on top of my camera, but being a weekend that I’m supposed to be relaxing and enjoying, I decided to use the built-in flash, instead of lugging around the additional weight.

I had some concerns leaving my room without the external, and as the daylight faded away, and the various classes coalesced into small groups, it became more difficult to capture the candid moments.

I found it extremely difficult to shoot true candids as the light of red-eye reduction flicker announced my intention of taking a photograph. The subjects would look up, causing the moment to be lost, and awkward expressions.

In the future, based on this experience, I may just have to suck it up and deal with carry an extra set of batteries and use my external flash.

Auto-Focus

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with auto-focus, and I truly miss the days of split screen focus that were prevalent on film based cameras, but in this case, as the night wore on and the drinks began to settle in, I was glad to have the extra little help especially in the wee hours of the morning.

Editing

This was probably the most difficult aspect of doing this type of personal photography.

Of course the various “posed” shots would make it through to the final stages of editing, but there is always that hidden desire to capture the mood of an intimate moment between old friends.

I have known these people for over 30 years, I had no desire to present them in an unflattering manner, but as mentioned above with the built-in flash, there were many expressions and looks that would not live past my first round of editing.

Then there is also the issue, of how one perceives them 30 years ago, versus what they have become in the time since, the transformation of a dweeb/geek to a Doctor or a President of a major company.

It would be too easy to release outtakes and doing damage upon many levels, but that is also an issue whenever you are shooting.

Posting

Oddly, this turned out to be one of the most difficult tasks of the entire event!

During my 7+ years on the Alumni Council Board (ACB), there were many discussions about how to reach out to the various Alumni, and it was generally understood, that the older Alumni preferred more traditional means, while the younger Alumni were generally fully digitally enabled. My class fell somewhere in between.

During the Sunday brunch, I chatted with some of my classmates on where to post all our images from the weekend, and this discussion continued online on Facebook as well as several e-mails that were sent the following day.

It became rather apparent, that some of our class was very comfortable working with Facebook, but at the same time an equal number had not spent any time on any social network.

Several alternatives were suggested, such as Flickr, Google plus and some others, but a common theme was the security of the images, and not requiring the sign up for some new account.

Eventually, images were posted to several sites for all to enjoy.

Conclusion

I have definitely struggled trying to reach some conclusion in this type of shooting situation.

One is very torn between doing a professional job and just being a classmate, enjoying the weekend together.

One is also confronted with your classmates seeing your professional work and expecting that same type of professionalism after the weekend has ended.

Then one is also faced with all the images from everyone else, whether it be a camera phone, a simple point-and-shoot, or the schools photographer covering the event.

I have since seen the wonderful images from the school photographer as they covered the daytime events, but they cannot be everywhere shooting everything, and that’s where the camera phones and point-and-shoot cameras come into more prominence for the individual classes, especially as the night wears on into the early morning.

In five years, I’ll have a chance to do this again, and the biggest change that I will do next time, is to use an external flash.

As I learned many years ago, photography is about capturing the moment, or put another way film is cheap but the moment is not.

– Andrew
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St. Andrew’s V8 Number 2 in the WORLD!

St. Andrew's School Crest, Middletown, DE
St. Andrew's School (DE)

I would like to congratulate the men of the St. Andrew’s Varsity 8 boat for the Second place finish in the Princess Elizabeth Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta in England this morning.

  • Forrest Brown ’11
  • Jack Hain ’11
  • David Ashpole ’12
  • Bobby Moffitt ’12
  • Whiting Tennis ’11
  • Sean Crowley ’11
  • Rob Rasmussen ’12
  • Jeff Rogers ’12
  • Jameson Pesce ’11

Truly amazing to think, a small school in the middle of the corn fields of Middletown DE is the 2nd best crew in the WORLD! Something the each and every member of that boat should be VERY PROUD of, and it will be something that you will carry with you the rest of your life!

Out of the 6-7 billion people on the face of the planet, you gentleman are among the Top 20 rowers in the WORLD! – Congratulations!

– Andrew (’82)
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Updates

Jul 9, 2011 – “Tiny school makes big splash” (delawareonline.com)

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Blogging Facebook Thoughts

Comedy Central, Facebook and SAS

So how small is this world? How big is SAS’s reach?

Well I recently found out, and thought I would share.

Back on Saturday, October 30th, there was a little gathering in Washington DC, hosted by a couple of comedians from Comedy Central.

I was unable to go, so i watched it live on TV, and online with the Facebook crowd, exchanging thoughts about what we were witnessing.

That unto itself, was very eye-opening!

Monitoring the main conversation thread, I happen to notice that “Dana Culleney” was beginning to respond to my comments directly, and we began to “chat”, and by the end of the show, we had connected as “Friends” on Facebook.

Since that day, we have exchanged and commented on a few things, but today that changed.

About 2pm this afternoon, I posted on Facebook, that “Dead Poets Society” was about to start on HBO.

After watching the movie, and several hours later, I checked Facebook, and saw this comment:

Dana Culleney – My husband went to school at that school– it is actually St. Andrew School in Delaware… He still has the school tie… 🙂

from there, it continued…

Andrew Seymour – Are you serious? What year? I’m ’82!
Dana Culleney – Class of ’59– he’s an old dude… 🙂 His father also taught there…
Andrew Seymour – Does he remember the Quillin brothers?
Dana Culleney – Stu says ‘yeah, I remember JD.’ Stu’s dad George was in the first SAS graduating class, class of ’34. Small world, eh?!
Jeff Quillin – Hello, my name is Jeff Quillin, JD is my father and Michael is my uncle.
Dana Culleney – @Jeff– Stu says ‘hello’ to all the Quillins! We’re over here near Seattle…
Dana Culleney – @Jeff– Stu says, “It was long ago and far away.” He says your dad was a burly guy with short hair, a football player… 🙂
Jeff Quillin – Stu, that is right my dad played football, he also wrestled and rowed crew. Dad was very into sports. He also was on the swim team.
Andrew Seymour – ?@Jeff – Thanks for jumping in! @Dana – Mike senior’s Boys (Mike Jr and David) were in my class, and Mike Jr. was my roommate Senior year… I also worked for both JD and Mike (Sr.) the summer out of SAS, and that is how I got to know Jeff! — Tis a VERY small world!

and if this were not enough, I got an eMail via the SAS website:

Andy,
Guess you and the spouse were chatting on face book. Small world.. I was in the class of ’59. The only quinlin that I knew was JD (’56). My dad, George W. Culleney was in the first graduating class in ’34. i was the first son of an alumnus to go there. We also lived there in 1944-1946, my dad taught english, latin and religion. i have many fond memories of the plac, both living there as a kid and going back to school there. have not been back since 1980. Traveled a lot for the navy (submarine service) and ended up here in Wa State in 1982.Worked for Johnson Controls for 3 yrs and Retired for good in ’92. Just leading the good life now.
stu

So how is that for showing the power of the internet to bring folks together!

Xtras!

If you happen to be on Facebook, you might be able to read the original thread!

or if you wish to read the original thread that started this all off from October 30th

Note – Dana and I openly tried to start a “World Record” for the “Longest Thread”, but later we learned that the record is over 27,000+ entries! (Ours only got up to 2,200+ entries)

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