One Of My Photos Was On The Cover of USA Today!
June is Pride Month.
June 9th was Pittsburgh’s Pride Parade and we made our way to Forbes Ave to take some photos before we headed over to the Three Stivers Arts Festival.
We only caught the tail end of the parade — about the last 40 minutes, where I took almost 300 photos. During that time, I’d noticed a small group of people in front of me giving out hugs and something told me to snap some of those hugs while snapping the paraders.
At the end of the day, I’d uploaded the pics to my computer and found that I’d gotten some really great shots. I posted some to SNAH’s FB & IG, letting people know I’d be happy to share the Google Photos Album link with them if they wanted to see if I happened to snap them since I had no idea who anyone was. Just like when I’d snapped pics during the Pittsburgh Marathon and posted some pics, I thought it would be nice if the people I’d captured could see their photos, ya know?
Then a day or two later, at the top of my FB feed was a post shared by the Couples Boudoir Photography Guy (whom I highly recommend checking out if you and your other half would like some beautiful photography done. He’s in Philly. Visit his site here.) That post was by one of the people I shot giving out the hugs — Scott “Howie” Dittman ! I actually had a name to one of the faces in my photos!
Immediately, I sent Howie a FB message along with the link to the album so he could see what I’d taken, not sure if he would even see it since messages from people you aren’t FB friends with end up in that box and not everyone check it. But, he did open it and he responded.
Pretty soon, he was including me in messages with various news outlets asking for permission to use my photos. As long as I was credited for them, I was more than happy to oblige.
Howie has been so gracious to include my photos along for the viral ride his story has been on. And I am so happy that they’re a part of such a wonderful story. I will be forever grateful for that.
I’ve seen my photos on CNN, Buzzfeed, MensHealth.com, FOX, and more, along with the cover of USA Today’s Weekend. Mind you, I knew about USA Today because they’d asked for permission, but I thought it would only be for the online edition. I didn’t even know about the print edition until I’d stopped at the Blairsville Sheetz on my way to Pittsburgh and looked at my Facebook notifications, where I found a post on my timeline. That post was a pic of the print edition!
I ran inside, picked up a copy, texted my friend asking which page, actually unfolded it and saw my photo on the freakin’ COVER! My photo! I took that! You could say that it was kinda hard to restrain my excitement while I stood in that aisle making a quick video for my InstaStory.😜 And then I proceeded to buy two copies. (I may have picked up two more copies after getting to Pittsburgh😂)
I truly was at the right place at the right time.
If you’d like to see the photos, follow this link.
