Budding Photographer

True story! This little girl named Bella Lanzinger, 5, was standing next to me using this camera. I glanced over and saw how cute it was and immediately started snapping off some pictures. This was my favorite of the few I got. Behind me, I hear the shutters of three other cameras going off as local newspaper photographers also captured the cute moment. One by Paul Tople for the Akron Beacon Journal is here: [link] and dang I'm proud I pointed them toward a photo op!

One thing about his photo I like is that he was far enough back to capture the girl's relative in the photo so you get a very touching family moment. One thing I like about mine is that she is the sole focus, and I'll be fair that I like them equally because of the different reasons.

I would definitely like to thank Paul Tople, Lew Stamp and Ken Love for not brushing me off and in fact making me feel like one of them for a few short hours while I shot my photos for my hobby while they worked the event.

This photo was taken at the 2010 7th Annual Polar Bear Jump held in Portage Lakes State Park. More than 400 people participated in jumping in the chilly waters to help raise, last I had heard, over $40,000 for the American Cancer Society. This number was nearly doubled from last year's Jump and a crowd of nearly 2,000 looked on with cheers.