Story Behind the Photo: Twins Tower Over Their Fellow Grads

snb102

Over the years, I must have photographed over thirty university, college,  and high school graduation ceremonies. Mostly the ones for the University of New Brunswick and St Thomas in Fredericton. The challenge was always finding something interesting…because they are pretty much the same every year.

The students line up at the student union building, fix their gowns and hats, and have pictures taken. Then they walk up the hill and wave to their parents and have their pictures taken. They enter the Aitken Centre, more waving, more pictures. They take their seats. The University President gets up and speaks. Some people get honorary degrees, and one of them speaks to the graduates. Then the hundreds of grads line up to get their degrees, and their family members cram into the photo area to get pictures.  (You can see examples of all of these in this post about taking great photos at a graduation ceremony.)
The key is finding something interesting, and that involves paying attention and looking around.

I was at the edge of the graduates as they stood during God Save the Queen, and as I looked to my right I saw these two heads popping up from the crowd. Remember, we are all STANDING up here. I thought to myself “Holy moly, those two guys are tall!”

I got myself into a bit better position to get a clearer shot of the these 6 foot 5 inch twin brothers Tim and Chris Beatty as they towered above their classmates. As always, I needed to get their names, so I made my way quietly and an unobtrusive as possible through the grads.

When I told them who I was, one of them remarked “Let me guess, you took a photo that makes us look really tall, right?” To which I replied “Yeah…sorry.” But they were good sports about it and gave me their names. I even got a nice letter from their dad saying how much he liked the photo. Always appreciate that!

Technical info:
Lens: 70-200mm
ISO: 1600
Shutter Speed: 1/250
Aperture: F2.8
Whitebalance: Flourescent
Metering: MANUAL of course!

Noel Chenier
Photographer and teacher
Connect with Noel on INSTAGRAM or TWITTER or via EMAIL

Want to make sure you get all the latest posts and info? Subscribe!

More Stories Behind The Photo Post

  • Canada Games Athletes-Rower Keegan Drummond

    Canada Games Athletes-Rower Keegan Drummond

    Today’s portrait shoot is of Canada Games rower Keegan Drummond. With my previous water based shoot experience, I realized that I needed MORE POWER if I was going to be able to light up Keegan while he was in the water. So I velcro-ed together THREE Canon Flashes and fired …
  • Canada Games Athletes-Sailors Alex Black and Kelvin Gilliland

    Canada Games Athletes-Sailors Alex Black and Kelvin Gilliland

    The second portrait in the series is of Team New Brunswick sailors Alex Black(l) and Kelvin Gilliland, one of the few multi-person shoots. They can be a bit of a challenge as you are trying to get both people into the composition along with the equipment/background, etc that tells their …
  • Behind The Photo: Air Canada Flight 646 Crash

    Behind The Photo: Air Canada Flight 646 Crash

    Hard to belive how fast time flies. It has been 25 years now since I took this photograph, which basically led to my almost two-decade career at the Telegraph-Journal. I’ve told the story behind the photograph more than a few times, but never put it down on here. (1392)
  • 1st Canada Games Portraits-Nicole Barry and Marlene Vaughan

    1st Canada Games Portraits-Nicole Barry and Marlene Vaughan

    The New Brunswick Canada Games athlete articles have started, so I can now start posting some pix from the shoots. The first story is about Nicole Barry, who is playing on the women’s softball team for this year’s games in Prince Edward Island, and her grandmother Marlene Vaughan, who competed …
  • Canada Games Athletes-Wrestler Megan Getchell

    Canada Games Athletes-Wrestler Megan Getchell

    Today’s portrait is of Canada Games wrestling team member Megan Getchell. This was another indoor portrait, which as previously mentioned, can be beneficial as you have total control over the light. I started out with some standard portraits. For these shots, I used a single flash in an umbrella, which …

 

(249)

Leave a Comment

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.