Equipment: Canon R8, Canon EF 70-300 USM, Canon T7i, Canon EF 24-70.
This photo has a soft spot in my heart for what it means to me. I was at a color guard competition for my brother and while I was there I had borrowed a T7i camera kit from my old high school's Digital Media Arts program, where I really got my big start as a photographer, starting from the ground up on a DSLR. I was using it was a spare videography camera I had set up on a tripod on the side of the road while I ran around doing my normal photo stuff with the other local photographers, including these older gentlemen. I have never known them personally and that was the only time I ever interacted with them, but it was a wonderful experience getting to shoot alongside them, with small looks to each other while we were moving in and around the road during the day. There was such a non chalant, relaxed nature about them that I can't quite describe, but nevertheless caught me off guard since I was used to shooting with a bunch of younger guys during fast paced events. During one of the breaks in between performances I went back to check on the T7i and just looked around in the viewfinder for funsies when I finally landed on the older photographers and then I stood back for a second, still being able to see them through it from a distance. In that moment I thought it would be a cool idea if I captured them through the viewfinder of a DSLR. All I had on me was the 70-300, but I thought why not take the long shot. After a little bit of dialing in the focus, I got it, and tucked that photo away for a little while. I always like taking photos of other other photographers and crew at events, because we're so busy taking pictures of others, we rarely get a chance to get a proper photo of ourselves being there, so to be able to get a photo of these guys was something special. Upon further reflection, I also appreciate the added layer of using a relatively modern lens on a wickedly awesome mirrorless camera, to take a picture through the viewfinder of an older system that I first trained on, that was now being phased out in favor of modern mirrorless cameras, that was all being focused through one of the biggest workhorse lenses of the past two decades, all to capture a photo of two photographers of a previous generation so far removed from mine.