Emotions were running high at an Obama rally on the University of Colorado campus five days before the presidential election.
For a mother and child, a decisive moment
5280 Lens Mafia
High on Photography…
Emotions were running high at an Obama rally on the University of Colorado campus five days before the presidential election.
5280 Lens Mafia 
Tom, your beautiful photo made me search my own archives for the Obama rally we attended in ’08 with our son. This time my son can cast his own ballot. I can feel that mother’s emotions and imagine her internal dialogue about bringing her child into the process.
I see many women’s faces in that image – and when I look at my own photo from ’08 I see more young male faces. Been an interesting four years.
Just. Freakin. Wonderful. Now THIS is what photography is all about. This is a Life Magazine worthy. I’m awed. Everything about it caught the moment beautifully. And thank God that woman on the right didn’t set off her flash right when you shot this.
Is the light on the mother and daughter natural, or did you enhance it in post?
this is wonderful! wonderful wonderful wonderful – tells a story simply and perfectly. 🙂
Thank you all for these kind comments. They really made my day. As for the image, the focus point turned out to be slightly behind the mother and child, so I brushed in some sharpening to their faces. This took care of the problem. And Stuart, I did add a little dodging. I’m wondering if I added too much. What do you think? (The positive comments I’ve received suggest that maybe I didn’t overdo it.) To further focus attention on the mom and daughter, I added a bit of vignetting. Lastly, I did some work on the image on the screen. Details on the placards behind President Obama were clipped; I was able to bring some of those details back with Aperture’s ‘recovery’ slider. And I did some burning, which also helped to bring out some of the details on the screen and make the president’s face more recognizable.
Ah, the fervor of the faithful, wonderfully captured.
A friend on Facebook just messaged me to say that the mom is a friend of hers. Boulder is a small town… I’m going to make her a nice print. Before I do, I need some advice: Should I back off just a little on the dodging of the mom and child’s faces? I think not, but I don’t trust my judgment on this one.
To my eye, you nailed it, Tom. It looks like they might just have caught a hot spot from light coming from above. I buy it. Once again, just a GREAT photo. I’m in awe.
I’m with Stuart. I’m no expert, but I wouldn’t touch a thing.
Love this photo. I can’t add much more to the other comments already here, but I will say as one of the faithful myself, this one gives me hope (again).