Little Man-Robert Davis

Saturday I covered the 4th of July celebration at Lane’s Southern Orchards here in Peach County. The wonderful thing about going to this kind of event is seeing folks you have not seen in a while. One of the first folks I ran in to was M.L. Holland. While at the Telegraph I photographed his young grandson Robert Davis several times. Robert is around 4 years old and has a fatal heart problem, pulmonary atresia. The youngster has had way too many surgeries for someone his age.

Little Man, as family and friends call him, is constantly tethered to an oxygen tank. The last time I went to the Holland’s to photograph him; he was riding his big wheel with the line to his oxygen trailing along behind him.

Several weeks ago he was in really bad shape, the doctors had sent him home and Hospice was called in. Little Man bounced back and was doing good enough to come out for the celebration Saturday.


I did the top photograph of him Saturday. What a sweet kid. Always has that infectious smile, always.

In my 38 years of photographing folks in Middle Georgia, some just stand out above the rest. Some of them I would really like to forget, but that’s the subject of another blog. Young Robert Davis is one of those really special people. Regardless of their circumstances, you walk away from them feeling a whole lot better about this world we live in. I hope I took a little bit of that special cheer and spread it to the rest of the people I talked with last week.

God bless you, Little Man.

Cool Images From The D90

I did pictures and an interview this morning with Greg Comer. Greg and his wife Marti are opening a bed and breakfast here in Fort Valley. Greg has been busy getting the 100 year old house ready for an August opening. This morning he was scrubbing floors. The photos were in the dining room. The rooms have some great windows and daylight filled the room Greg was working in as well as the room behind him. Seeing through the house made for great depth in the photos.

I shot from various angles as he worked, beginning with my back to the windows and moving around. I knew my best pictures were going to be looking back into those huge windows. Thought I might have to use a bit of fill flash to make it work, but luckily I was wrong. The light walls bounced plenty of light back on Greg and his son Mason.

The bottom photo was early in the series, the top photo was almost to the end.
The lower image was with my old trusty 15mm. It is a nice photo, like the light, love the 5 year-old watching his dad working. I thought “hey, this is it.”

I moved around looking back into the windows as Greg moved more into the room and was mopping across in front of me. Mason moved farther back in the room and leaned against the table. I swapped the 15 for my 10mm and continued shooting.
I expected to have to really photoshop to make up for all the backlight, but I did very little to this image. It was shot with the D90 on auto using shutter speed priority. Came out of the camera looking really great. Wish I had done a couple with the D200
just for comparison.

I liked the bottom photo a lot, but the top one will make the paper. Love the way the backlighting makes Mason almost ghost-like. It makes you take a second look.