While driving to an assignment for the biz page to shoot a recent job fair I thought, "what with the high unemployment lately, a long line of people waiting to get in would make a good shot."

And that's what I found:

Then luck brought me a better shot. Suddenly, right in front of me, a spiffy gent was tying his shoe. This shot still has the long line, but with a bit of whimsy:

I also found a more complete, story-telling shot. It has the pleasure of layers-- something near, something in the middle ground, and something far. Another plus to this third shot: a frisson of tension with an outstretched hand about to touch the brochure:

Yet the heart of the job fair is inside the auditorium where job seekers meet prospective employers.

I soon found myself at the end of a table. On the left were job seekers and on the right, reps for Comcast. Shooting down the "corridor" between them could be interesting. Potentially lots of gestures and expressions, and with some compositional order (pictures that are too busy or disorganized are hard to read):

Then I decided to "get low" and shoot at the level of the young woman filling out a form:

Then the young man from the left also bent down. I kept shooting as the shot got better:

It was only a few frames later that luck again arrived, at the top of my frame appeared that classic symbol of good business: a handshake.

I recognized that this was my favorite shot, and the handshake lasted long enough for me to shoot several frames while double checking that at least one of the folks filling out the form was in focus.

I was sure that it was "in the can", as they used to say in Hollywood, and I had only been there for 18 minutes! (That's according to the metadata from my camera.)

Business assignments rarely yield several good shots. We managed to fit two of them in the paper.