2005-04-26 - Highly Decorated

Yesterday was Anzac Day and I attended a memorial parade. It was a really nice day and lots of people turned out - probably too many because I ended up half standing in the bushes to get a reasonable vantage point.

When I'm at home, I don't get very many opportunities to take people shots like this so I had high hopes of getting some nice candids. Having looked through my photos now, I'm a little disappointed with my results. The lighting was pretty harsh for the most part due to the bright sunlight, resulting in strong shadows. I only thought afterwards that I should have probably tried to use some fill flash (something I've tried in the past but never had much success with because I only had on-camera flash).

Although I'm not totally happy with it, I decided to post this photo because I like the expression on his face. For some reason, the stiff upper lip and focused gaze is just the sort of look I would expect from a man of this rank in the military. I originally took this as a half length shot but decided to crop closer to show more detail on the medals and to limit some of the distracting background elements. Overall, not one of my best people shots but ok for the circumstances I think.