I take a lot for granted.
Alan, Edison, and I visited Matheny School and Hospital ( http://www.matheny.org/ ). It is a wonderful facility, nestled up in the rolling hills of western New Jersey. Matheny is the school (and home) for many children and teenagers with severe disabilities.
Graduation is right around the corner and we volunteered to shoot the graduation photos for their three graduating seniors. We wanted to try to provide something different from the standard yearbook shot...we wanted to try to use the environment which has been such an important place for each student for many years.
We ran into problems with the lack of opportunity to set up and test shoot locations. One student does not live at Matheny so there was the extra time pressure of finishing in time before this student left for the day. I t had been pouring rain earlier which did stop for us. There was, however, the problem of getting heavy wheelchairs over mud and other wet terrain.
Looking back, it was a challenging "assignment", but very rewarding. I hope that we managed at least a handful of photos that will bring a little bit of joy to the students' families.
The best part of the day, was getting to see my friend, Dawn who took a few moments out of her busy day to come out to say hi. She is a physical therapist for Matheny. Even though she's way along with her pregnancy (nope, that's not a basketball that Dawn is holding), she is still working hard, dedicated to her clients at Matheny.
So what did I learn yesterday? Nothing goes exactly as planned and you usually need 30 minutes more, no matter how well you plan.
You also can't will a person to do what you want. Somethings asking for your subject to smile isn't as simple as saying, "Please smile". And, if someone doesn't want to wear a graduation cap, that thing isn't going to stay on for more than one second.
I've learned that truly interacting with people requires that you make some type of connection...something that is often times more difficult than expected.
It was so nice to see Dawn. Friendship is the one thing I hope to NEVER take for granted.