Recently I was in Atlanta, Georgia photographing Atlanta Braves’ legendary player, Chipper Jones.Before the shoot, we had some time to interview and ask Jones a few questions about how his life has changed since he retired playing baseball almost 2 years ago.
One of the things Jones mentioned was that his responsibilities have changed. He said, “I’m more of a dad now than I was when I was playing professional Baseball”.
Once we had wrapped up his interview, I started taking photos.Before a session, I like to plan everything ahead of time, i.e. lighting, the position of the my subject, his/her actions and so on.
As a photographer, one of my biggest pet peeves are distractions. When I’m working with clients, I’m usually limited with time so when my client is distracted, I pause until they regain focus and I proceed with my work.
Immediately after I had asked Jones to sit at his office desk and look outside the window, his son came running in for a quick hug from his dad before heading out with his mom. At this very moment, unlike others, I didn’t stop and wait until this quick moment passed, I just clicked the shutter. After looking through my viewfinder to review the photos I had taken, I realized that I had just captured the most powerful moment from the entire session. It clearly represents who Chipper Jones is now as a father and exaggerates the simplicity of his reasoning and responsibility behind “..more of a dad now..”.