Each year on or around my daughter’s birthday, I make an official “portrait” of her. This started at six months when I took a photo of Amanda trying to eat her own foot (she’s brilliant!). I have all of the photos hanging in chronological order on the wall in my office.
 
Amanda turned four in January and we had a party for her with most of her friends from the pre-k class. It was a busy day (ever try to wrangle a dozen four-year-olds?), so I didn’t really have a chance to set up my lights.
Later that week, the three of us flew to Florida to go on the Barenaked Ladies cruise. It’s awesome when my family can come with me on a job that includes a Caribbean cruise, although they generally don’t see a lot of me during the week.
When we were visiting Grandma’s house in Boynton Beach, I made a photo of Amanda running down the sidewalk after checking out the pool. I was shooting a Nikon D300 with the 17-55 lens and ran backwards as she sprinted down the street. Auto-focus is a wonderful thing in this situation as I wasn’t even looking through the lens.
 
After the trip, I showed Amanda a few different pics that I shot of her and asked which one she wanted to be her “official” four-year-old portrait. This is the one she picked. She’s actually a pretty good photo editor!
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