University of Dallas Graduation 2011

The Story:

I was attending my younger brother Carl’s graduation from the University of Dallas.  Overall, it’s a familiar place to me. Both of my parents attended school there, so we had been a number of times growing up.  Then, both Carl and my sister ended up picking UD for college; they’re a school year apart, so I think it was probably a pretty cool thing for both of them.  For most of the time they were there, I was living close enough to Dallas to drive over for holidays when they didn’t travel home.  As a result I have seen and photographed the UD campus a bunch; most of those photographs are unremarkable.

By the time Carl’s graduation rolled around I was living further away, but I was glad I was able to make it.  I would get to visit with my immediate family, which is always welcome.  In addition my uncle had brought my grandmother down to attend; coincidentally one of our cousins was in Carl’s graduation class also, so it was a bonus for her.  It’s a small-world story, for sure, and was a fun time.

The Shot:

While familiar with the campus, the commencement setup was a new challenge.  Another challenge was that I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for.  I knew that I wanted to document my brother’s graduation, but I had to scout on the fly.  I found a location where I could use my telephoto lens and have an ok view of Carl receiving his diploma.  In reality, though, those shots all turned out very bland.  I did not have enough reach, there were few flawless angles, and the stage was relatively dark.  When Carl was walking back to his seat, however, I stumbled upon something I wasn’t expecting at all.

I had positioned myself on the left side of the field so that I was on the open side of the student’s body as they shook hands on stage.  Coincidentally, this provided a good view of the students as they returned along the left side of the student body to their seats.  As Carl turned down his row, he happened to look towards a few friends and I got what I consider to be a good shot of him.  Best picture of the day, hands down.

I liked it so much that I gave my parents a canvas wrap from mpix to hang on their wall (some of that room around him is the side wrap in practice, and it really highlights Carl by cropping it down by default).  Carl was the first of the kids’ adult portraits (and as the middle-ish child, he’s never first!); this started a multi-year adventure of trying to make good portraits for my parents to hang in the stairway.  This revealed that portraiture is definitely not my area of expertise!