Good Luck Alison.

Friday was a sad day for The Capital photo department. It was staff photographer Alison Harbaugh's last day working for the paper. No, she was not fired. She has decided to enter the world of the freelance photographer with her new venture Freckle Photography. She is going to be doing high-end candid children's photography.

We had a party Friday night at the Sly Fox in Annapolis, and she had a great turnout. The picture above is most of the photo staff (L to R) Alison Harbaugh, J Henson, Bob Gilbert and yours truly, Paul W Gillespie. In case you are wondering it was also Hawaiian Shirt Friday at the paper, but I was the only one who remembered. Josh McKerrow was on vacation so he is not pictured.

While it is sad to see our friend and colleague leave the paper, we are happy that we had the opportunity to work with her. She brightened all of our days with her great personality. We all wish her nothing but the best and hope her Freckle Photography is a great success.

Another sad note to Alison's departure is that we are not filling her spot on the photo staff until the fall, we are told. I only hope that come September, we get a new shooter. We have an intern filling her spot for the summer, but it will be impossible to keep up the amount of assignments we cover if the staff is permanently cut down from four to three people. Let alone do all the new stuff that they want, like video and the twice-a-month photo page, which is actually two pages.

Good luck Ali.