It’s been two years since I last saw Kathryn, and three years since I last photographed her, since we live a couple hours apart. It turns out that 2020 of all years was the year we decided to reunite. We arrived at a local park about 40 minutes before sunset which meant we really had to hustle. After trying on a couple outfits that turned out to be poor choices (my bad), we decided to just leave Kathryn in what she was already wearing to the shoot. Neither of us had been to this park before, so we headed down a path in search of any tall grasses we could find. We lucked out and started shooting right away, until just seconds before the sun dipped below the horizon. From the first photo you see here to the last one, only 17 minutes elapsed, making this my quickest photo shoot ever. It pays off to work with the same models over and over again, because it’s easy to get good, fast results without a lot of effort. Photographing Kathryn almost seems like cheating.

I recently added one of the final missing pieces to my lens collection — a 35mm prime lens in the form of the Tamron 35mm ƒ/1.8 VC. What a tremendous lens! I did a lot of research on 35mm lenses before purchasing, considering both the Nikon equivalent (no stabilization) and the faster Sigma ART (ƒ/1.4 but extraordinarily expensive). The Tamron was the right bang for the buck and this is the first real photo shoot I’ve used it for. With one previous notable exception, I generally won’t photograph people with any lens that’s wider than 35mm, but I’m glad I now have something that’s lightweight and sharp for that express purpose. The first three photos here are shot with the Nikon 85mm ƒ/1.8G, but everything else is with the Tamron 35mm.