Day 108–Goose Stepping

This may be a long explanation. I apologize.

No I really don’t actually.

You didn’t really believe me did you?

But I digress.

Oh May 18th I am photographing the wedding of Greg and Lovely Michelle. Michelle may be the most enthusiastic bride I have ever had the pleasure to work with. The jury is still out on that but she is certainly a front runner.

What does this have to do with goslings you might be asking yourself.

Well, there is a correlation I promise.

So last Wednesday Michelle and I spent several fun hours scouting out a place to do some of the Bridal Party shots after they leave the church and before they arrive at the reception venue.

The only problem with those fun hours spent in my car was that 1. It was raining, and I don’t mean a gentle drizzle and 2. The temperature had gone from 69F to 45F in the space of several hours and I had on flip flops, hadn’t brought along a jacket and had shorts sleeves on and Michelle was in SHORTS! I was cold but every time I looked at her huddling in my car I just wanted to break out into even more shivers.

So we dive and look and drive and look and drive and look. For the love of Peter, Paul and Mary we live near the Cuyahoga Valley National Forest we should be able find some place. Finally we turned around and I suggested that we stop at the Hinkley Reservation on the way back. I was a tad discouraged I will admit but I wasn’t ready to give up yet. We made a right hand turn and drove through rural residential. Michelle kept saying “it was really residential” and “I don’t know” and…..

We made a left hand turn right by the closed Putt Putt golf place and drove several hundred feet….

And there was the park with the WATERFALL! And beautiful TREES! And even though it was cold and raining (like it has been known to do here in the Frozen Northeast Ohio in Spring) Michelle and I both said….

THAT’S IT!

We quickly got out and slogged through the rain so that we could very quickly look and I could take a picture or two and then we rain back to the car and left. But…..

I have been thinking about that place and knowing that I really needed to go back and further investigate so that I would know what I was dealing with. It is not a good idea to have no concept of where you are shooting wedding photos. And today was the day to go. There isn’t a cloud in the sky and the temp is 80F so over there I drove.

And it is going to be perfect.

And as I was scoping out the area I came upon a lake just over the rise and by the lake were the geese and because I had the Super ZOOM on Big Bertha I could get a picture of the goose stepping gosling without going close enough that Mother Goose got angry at me and tried to take a chunk out of my leg like Bruce the Shark in Jaws.

See, I told you there was a correlation.

And you didn’t believe me. Don’t lie! I can tell.