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Best of - Happy

Without question, emotion can make or break a photo. If there is not an emotional connection to what you're looking at... it may as well not even be there.

Here are some of my best positive emotion photos from 2008...

Jason Palmer/Times Record News
Christian Lerma, 2, squeals with delight as he rides a float during the Fiestas Patrias parade in downtown Wichita Falls Saturday morning.

This hilarious little kid was having sooooooooo muuuuuuuuch fun riding on the float. He was just smiling and screaming and waving his little flag all over the place. Parades are a total crapshoot when it comes to taking pictures.

I call it a target-rich enviroment... you just have to have both eyes open and searching for something that will make a good photo. I could hear this kid squealing from about a block away, he was that loud.

Once I had him in my sights... I just walked along with the float and bided my time until I got him doing exactly what I wanted for the shot.

Jason Palmer/Times Record News
Windthorst's Carmen Stallcup (4) reacts after killing a shot for a point during their volleyball playoff match against Petrolia Tuesday night at the Wichita Falls High School Gym.

It wasn't that hard to get a shot of the Windthorst volleyball girls celebrating something. It seemed like after every point they scored, it was a state title moment. It's not like it took longer than about four seconds to realize that I needed to get a shot of that kind of emotion.

So, I forsake the traditional spot of shooting volleyball and decided that the best chance to capture that kind of emotion was from behind when the forward players would turn and scream toward their teammates.

Easy as pie....

Jason Palmer/Times Record News
The Wichita Falls Wildcats celebrate a goal in front of the Texas Tornado bench during the first period Saturday night at Kay Yeager Coliseum.

Nothing like scoring a huge goal right in front of the other team's bench. I didn't realize until later the expressions on the bench faces... I wish I would have zoomed out a bit to see the fans in the back also.

Posted by Jason Palmer at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)