Butler Photography

I was asked to cover some local graduations this past week for a couple newspapers. I really like shooting these graduations because its always a challenge to get some interesting images from such staged events. This year was especially challenging as last Friday when I was asked to cover two graduations on the same night, both starting at 6pm with a deadline to get the images to the paper by 7:30 so they could layout the pages in time for printing. Let me tell you, its not easy going into an event as a photojournalist and trying to find compelling images with little time to spare. Most of the time people don’t know who you are and they are not to keen on you invading their space. As a photojournalist I like to get close to the action because that’s when I can capture the most compelling images, not easy when your a stranger to your subject. It takes time to build a trust with your subjects so they will be themselves when you are near them with a camera… time I didn’t have Friday but I made the best of it. Sure I could go in and find some kids that will smile for the camera and be done but that is not my job. My job is to go where the reader can’t go, show the reader what they don’t normally see; I need to capture real honest images that try and tell the story of the event. Sometimes people will pose for me and I will tell them I can’t take posed pictures because that is not what photojournalism is all about… I need to capture images that are real moments, unstaged yet compelling enough so the person looking at the paper will read the story behind the images. Here are a few of my favorites from the last week.  Most don’t make the paper for what ever reason, lack of space mostly but Friday had such a close deadline, I looked through the images so quickly, some nice images slipped by without notice, untill now.   The towns covered were Stafford, Somers, Ellington and Suffield.

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