Jaylin on the King and Queen of Hearts Court

All Dressed Up

Recently, Jaylin was chosen to be one of the candidates for King for the King and Queen of Hearts at school. This ceremony is usually held at halftime during a basketball game. But because of COVID, the ceremony was moved to during the school day. It was streamed online for those in their classrooms and for those at home. Fortunately, they invited the parents of those on the court to attend in person. Laura was already there, obviously, but I was glad to be able to go.

So here are a few photos from the day. Even though Jaylin and Anna, who he escorted, did not win King and Queen, it was an honor to be chosen in the first place.

Bible Verse

How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. - Psalm 36:7

About the Photos

We were up the balcony for the ceremony, which is pretty far away for photos. But after the ceremony, they had a time for taking photos, so we went down to the stage for that.

The photos of Jaylin with Laura and me were a little tricky. We were standing on the floor in front of the stage, out of the spotlights. So we were a little dark compared to the bright red curtain background. And I had left my camera flash at home. Fortunately, there was enough detail in the Raw file to be able to recover and adjust to make the photos look almost normal. In hindsight, we should have done like I did for the photo of Jaylin by himself. For that one, I went up on the stage with Jaylin so that he would be in the light. But Laura had already gone to put kids in cars by the time the stage was cleared out enough. So at least we got to get a photo with her before she had to leave.

Photos: Each photo is a single Raw exposure, processed in Luminar AI. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Sony Alpha A7 II
Lens: Sony FE 28-70mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS lens
Date: January 22, 2021
Location: Harding Academy, Memphis, Tennessee