On Recognition

This is from the 40D camera, and gosh, it does a good job. The nice thing about 5D is that it does much better with white balance. This picture turned out pretty blue (taken in the shade) and I had to de-blue it.

And now for something unrelated to this baby or camera bodies. I recently photographed some baby 1st birthday parties. Lots of area Moms come to these parties, and it's not unusual to see one or two families that I've photographed in the past. Sometimes this is great, to see a familiar face who will say something nice like: We loved your pics!

But then, there are the ones that Don't remember me. One such Mom spotted me as the Party Photographer and asked: So, do you do private in-home baby sessions?
I went along with things and said: Why Yes, I do.
She said: We did that once when our baby was three months old, and then we tried a few other sessions since then and they went badly.
Awkward.
If I hadn't previously been her photographer, I'd have asked what she'd liked improved upon, and made sure that she got my contact info. Instead, I was digging through my brain files: Did I do her 3 month photos??? And I pretended to see something I needed to photograph and ran away. I have since checked my photo archive, and indeed I did do her 3 month photos (it's the other sessions that went badly, right?)

Well, my husband says, it's not quite the same thing, but I wouldn't recognize say, our plumber if I saw him on the street. True true. I recognize my clients, because I focus on them for an hour, and then further burn their faces into my retinas with several hours of photo editing. Meanwhile, while people may be looking at me during photos, the camera blocks most of my face. They probably make eye contact for 5 minutes during that whole hour. I should be impressed that any clients recognize me at all.