Ronnie Hilderman "Portraits of 100 Strangers" 3 of 100

Ronnie Hilderman was actually not a stranger to me. He didn't know that though. I actually met Ronnie at Publix back towards the beginning of the summer of 2009. I was working at Publix at the time.
Around 2:00 p.m. the sirens at the court house went off. We were under a tornado warning. All of the managers and employees at the store scampered to get all of the customers inside. Of course I had my nose all up in the window looking for this massive beast of a tornado.
The emergency broadcasting system was buzzing like crazy so, I knew that it had to be bad. Somehow I managed to weasel my way out the front door to watch for this thing. It wasn't long till I actually saw it making its way toward us over the tree line. Quickly I ran back inside and informed the managers. This thing was a beast.
Every one was instructed to go back to the back of the store and get into one of the coolers where it would be safe. The beast actually sounded like a freight train as it grew nearer. I was always told that they sounded like a freight train and, that it did. After about a minute or two it grew quiet again. Just like that it had come and gone. Leaving 23 miles of destruction and devastation in its path. Two lives were taken that day and hundreds of homes were destroyed.
Ronnie Hilderman was one of the customers in the cooler that day. I remember thinking to myself, boy id love to do a shoot with him. Well this week as I was out and about looking for my next subject, there he was. Sitting in the barbers chair at the local barber shop. I knew at this point that I had to go and talk to him and ask him if he would be my subject.
Ronnie replied that he had to get back to work and that he was on his lunch break. "I'll see if I have enough time after having this hair of mine cut," he said.
I was able to get about 10 minutes with Ronnie. Just enough time to get my lights set up camera adjusted and fired off a couple of shots. The wind was also bad that day so it made it hard to keep his hair out of his face, much less keeping my lighting from getting blown over. I'm hoping to find Ronnie again soon, when he has more time. Id love to do a good 30 minute photo session with him.
Yes I did use the my Exposure Card on this shot. It has given perfect exposure for my off camera strobes every time. However, I did take exposure down just a little on the first image of this story. Not much about .17 of a stop just because personally I wanted this image just a tad darker.