© 2009 Andrew Shurtleff

The shot

Sometimes the boring assignments turn into images people talk about for weeks. I had to shoot UVa employees receiving flu vaccinations which turned into a real hassle getting through the PR folks. When all the red tape cleared, I had one chance with one person to get an image. The shot would last about 4 seconds so I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get much. Trying to find an angle I ducked down at the last second and got off 4 images before it was over. I thanked the woman for letting me photograph her then I looked at the images. I laughed out loud and was surprised to see that span of 4 seconds I had taken my best image for the week. You never know when it’s gonna happen so shoot everything and hope you get one that make people react. This one did it for me.

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