karla's party

One evening in Savannah, I was walking to dinner with the rest of the people on the workshop. We passed through Chippewa Square, where a birthday party was happening, with tea lights hanging from the trees. It was obvious that some people had gone to a lot of trouble to put this really cool party on, a big ice sculpture cake, tables, music. All in the middle of the public square - it was beautiful. Hanging moss from the trees, the street lamps, just great ambiance.

For some reason I felt really drawn to that whole thing. I thought it was great what her friends were doing, throwing such a fun party like that and I really wanted to take some pictures. More than that, I noticed her friends were all shooting with point and shoots, firing the flash and just missing the great mood and ambiance of the lighting and the park. I really wanted to capture some of that mood. The rest of my group walked off and I had to run to catch up with them, I spent so much time trying to get one good picture. It was really dark, everyone was moving and I was trying to find somewhere to brace my camera. I finally perched on the edge of a wall at the street corner and got a couple of okay shots. I also talked to some of the people at the party and got an email address. A couple of weeks later, I sent through some of the pictures. The person turned out to be from Round Rock (next town over from Austin) so we chatted a bit by email. Then I got an email from Karla (it was her birthday). I find out that she's also from the McGregor clan - her family left the area I grew up in and moved to Georgia in 1790, but she knew all my family history, the clan battles and so on. So somewhere along the line I guess we are cousins. I've been invited back for a clan gathering in May. Savannah is an odd place. Yet again, just following my intuition and going along for the ride with my photography hooked me in to something fun and made a connection. It would have been so easy just to walk on by but having the camera and an interest in people photography made me spend the time. I sent Karla a large print of the party for her birthday. It just feels good to give the prints away and make people happy with them.