Editing images is never easy. Especially when you’ve shot 50 frames of the same scene, looking for minor details that make one picture better then the next. That was the case here, during a salute to the 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team that came home to Coos County Friday evening after a 10-month deployment in Iraq.
I arrived a bit early, talked to some people and made some pictures. I found an interesting angle just before the troops drove by. Flags were flying, hands were waving and facial expressions were changing. My goal was to get all of these elements in-line for a layered photo with a nice moment.
The main thing I’m looking for here is moment. The images are practically the same, but there’s a choice of moment. Do I care about showing faces or capturing a telling moment? In a perfect world, I would have done both. But in this case I didn’t have an image where all elements came together perfectly. So I chose the salute, despite Dino Kummelehue covering the face of his wife, Lynnelle, with his elbow. These are small choices I make while editing to determine what is the “best” image. “Best” is always subjective, this is just my take. While shooting, I compose the frame and press the shutter when the elements come together. But with so much going on, you can only concentrate on a few elements at once and hope that you got the image.
World Photos by Benjamin Brayfield
