Christmas morning in the wilds of Putnam county

The people and animals in this photograph are Betsy, her three children, Vic, Aden and Liv, their dog Bear and  the family cat George. On the left is their friend Marshall. It was taken on Christmas morning. When I arrived, Marshall, an acupuncturist, masseur and Qi Gong ~ Tui Na practitioner, was treating Liv for a painful jaw.

The sun was lighting the sofa that I was going to use in the picture. It was lighting only the lower half so Marshall unrolled paper that he uses to cover the patient’s table and taped it on the window to diffuse the sunlight. I put Aden and Bear into place as a center piece and the others fell into place  around them. The children, aged 22-30, survived well without their phones for the few minutes it took to get the picture done.

One thing I am getting better at: I do not spend time before a shoot worrying about what to do. How can you possibly know what you will have to do? You may well not have  seen the house where the shoot will take place and you possibly will not have even met the subjects. (Not a case in point with Betsy et al. whom I know well.) But my nervous disorder insists that I have a plan. Now, when I ease aside the worry about where the light will come from or will one of the group want to wear a roll neck sweater, (Oh, how I dislike roll necks!), I waltz in and wait to see what I need to do according to what I am presented with. I expect to sleep better now.