It took a few little white lies, but we made it happen. My husband, Pete, is like a lot of men…pretty hard to buy presents for. So when he proclaimed at Thanksgiving that all he wanted for Christmas was a portrait of our three kids (all students at UW-Madison at the time) with Bucky, they knew what they had to do. Our family has quite the Badger tradition, with parents, aunts and uncles, and even grandparents who went to school there. Pete understood that this moment was going to pass by so quickly and he wanted this portrait to represent that tradition and be special.
Weeks later, while I made excuses about going shopping and drove from the Manitowoc/Two Rivers area to Madison for a photo shoot, Beth, Mitch, and Erin met at Camp Randall and got things started. Beth went to pick up Bucky. It must have been quite a sight with Bucky’s rather large head in the passenger seat of a little Ford Escort!
The stadium was wide open so Mitch, Erin, and I went right in. I prepared my equipment, and we waited. And waited…and waited. It seemed like forever when we weren’t exactly sure if they would let us stay. Once Bucky arrived, we felt pretty confident. Who’s going to boot Bucky! We started photographing just off the field, in a corner of the stadium and eventually made our way to the 50 yard line for portraits of each one separately and all together.
I photograph lots of families, high school seniors, weddings, etc. but my own family isn’t always the first to want their pictures taken. This one was for Dad and that made it all worth it!
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