This week, I wish to provide a few tips to anyone who plans on taking a photo of a large group of people.  I should mention, however, that I have absolutely no credentials as a photographer, and I in fact don’t even like taking photos.  I have taken maybe fifty photos on my various cell phones since I started using this mode of communication some ten years ago, and yet, I still feel it is necessary to impart some much-needed wisdom on any prospective photographers out there.

First thing you must remember is that your subjects should be LOOKING AT YOU and not in forty-five different directions, and your subjects should not be posing for some other photographer.  If this happens, you should take the eighteen seconds to signal them to look directly at you, let them flex their muscles and point out the fact they are “number one”, and only THEN should you click the button on your camera.

Second thing: if there are any objects that don’t make any freakin’ sense sitting in the middle of your shot, remove them.  Case in point, the TV set in the card above.  Couldn’t the Generals have just slid the thing ten feet over to the left before posing for the photo?  This card looks especially dated now considering no one owns this type of TV anymore.

Ok, ok, that’s a little mean of me to just suggest tossing the TV set over to the side.  Maybe the TV was an important member of the Generals family, and the players felt it should be a part of the photo.  That’s really a sweet gesture from the team.  Who says teenagers are mean-spirited and thoughtless?  How many other teams do you know of who invited a lonely TV set onto the ice to celebrate their big moment?  I’ll tell you how many: zero!