There are a couple of milestone days as a person grows up from being a child into adulthood. One of those major days is High School Graduation and of course, the prom. That's why I had a sudden case of excitement, followed by a large case of anxiety, when my friend Emmanuel contacted me back in May and asked if I would be willing to take some prom night photographs of his daughter, Florence. Some of you may know Florence from these pages, though this is the first time she appears here without a hockey mask. Florence is my favourite young goaltender and I've had lots of fun shooting her in game action over the last few years. That is probably the big reason why I agreed to take a shot at taking real photographs of her, despite only having shot a prom once before. As with most things, I find that you can get the best results when you prepare. With that in mind, and also having full knowledge of my mood and nerves, I prepared for this day by Googling prom photos and printing out a few pages of poses that I found might be interesting because I was a little worried that once at the park, I would freeze up and not know what to do with my young models, or myself. After 
some quick jokes to try and loosen my mood and also learning the magic word that a local cyclist told me would surely get a laugh out of my young subject (it begins with 's' and rhymes with 'flex'), we were off to find some free spots in the park that hadn't already been taken over by other prom goers with their own photographers in tow. The late afternoon sun provided perfect lighting, and though some would have probably used flash in order to fill out the photographs I actually like seeing shadows here and there, especially the shadows of Florence's necklace and eyelashes in the second photograph. The first photograph in this series was taken at f/4, 1/1000sec, ISO 100 at 46mm and the second photograph was taken at f/4, 1/1600sec, ISO 100 at 46mm. Here are a few more photographs that I took.
some quick jokes to try and loosen my mood and also learning the magic word that a local cyclist told me would surely get a laugh out of my young subject (it begins with 's' and rhymes with 'flex'), we were off to find some free spots in the park that hadn't already been taken over by other prom goers with their own photographers in tow. The late afternoon sun provided perfect lighting, and though some would have probably used flash in order to fill out the photographs I actually like seeing shadows here and there, especially the shadows of Florence's necklace and eyelashes in the second photograph. The first photograph in this series was taken at f/4, 1/1000sec, ISO 100 at 46mm and the second photograph was taken at f/4, 1/1600sec, ISO 100 at 46mm. Here are a few more photographs that I took.
f/4, 1/1600sec, ISO 400 at 24mm
f/8, 1/200sec, ISO 100 at 51mm
f/4, 1/1600sec, ISO 400 at 60mm
f/4, 1/1000sec, ISO 100 at 38mm
I made sure to use a large aperture in all of the photographs because I wanted the backgrounds to be blurred out, except for the group shot where I used a smaller one to make sure that everyone would be in focus. Being a hockey player, Florence brought her goalie mask and stick with her for a couple of fun shots, though there was a bit of seriousness involved. On her mask was a sticker that represented a friend and fellow player who had tragically died in a car accident earlier in the year. I'm glad that one, as well as all of the others turned out and I'm glad that they thought of me to share the special day. I hope I gave them a nice selection of photographs that will help Florence remember this milestone day for the rest of her life. Merci pour votre confiance en moi mes amis.
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