Honor Guard at the State Capitol Building

The Pulaski County Sheriff's Office Honor Guard had a full dress rehearsal at the Arkansas State Capitol Building last Wednesday.

I got to go, but was more or less a second photographer. The county's Public Information Officer, John Rehrauer, was there taking pictures. It was fine though, because I had to be in most of the photos to update the county's web site, which is in desperate need up updating. Beside the old graphics and design, it still features Sheriff Randy Johnson, though we're coming to the end of Sheriff Doc Holliday's first term and his first shot at reelection.

We started outside at the Arkansas Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, but the start time was noon. The sun was high and gave too much contrast, and wearing our hats did not help any. We either got faces or uniforms exposed just right, so I was not happy with most of these. Then we moved inside and found a set of seemingly white marble steps with a skylight above it. There was just enough light to get some grainy photos with the light bouncing back up from the staircase as a large reflector. At the end of the shoot, we did an improvised portrait session of each member with our United States flag lowered behind each person for a better background. Unfortunately, the flag was hand held, not posted up somewhere, so not all the portraits came out as well as Dep. Lavigne's did.

The original plan for the day was just to take photos on the outside steps. Had I known we were going inside, I would have brought my lights to improve the outcome. I'll take them with me next time, just in case. The bottom photo is the lieutenant with the rifle team, about a third of the Honor Guard.