What Are You Doing This Afternoon?

A couple of Saturdays ago I received a call from a friend who runs a Christian camp just a few miles from my house. He had a group going on a hike to the "Penitentiary", a really cool maze of rocks where kids can crawl through tight spaces, challenge themselves by walking along ledges and developing teamwork by being in situations where they must depend on each other. "So what are you doing this afternoon," he said. "I'd like to get some shots of these kids for our website."

Since I didn't have any plans and my wife and kids were away I took him up on the invitation and shot a few shots. Although this is the Manual DSLR Project, I shot most of these in Aperture Priority. Why? Because I felt that was the best tool for the job. Many of the shots taken were in low light situations. While I used a flash on some of the shots, I tried to limit the use of flash where I might temporarily "blind" the kids when they were trying to balance or walk across a narrow ledge.

It was definitely a different experience as the action was fast, lighting was challenging, and the kids were having a great time. It was fun to share their hike and preserve some memories for them. I did have the advantage of having hiked the same area before so I knew where to catch some of the shots.

I've included a few of the shots here. As you can see, there was a little snow left on the ground, though the temperature was hovering around 45-50 degrees (F), making it a comfortable hike. This was just another opportunity to take some photos, enjoy the great outdoors, and experiment with some interesting lighting situations.

I would like to go back in the early morning with a tripod to take some more "artistic" shots of the rocks and experiment more with the lighting. 

I hope you enjoy! MK

More Snow Pics

During our recent snow event (which is pretty rare for us) I took several photos but just realized that I had not posted very many of them. This is one that I took in our front yard. I was trying to capture the starkness of the tree and its shadow against a clear blue sky. As you can see, our dog had created a trail around the left of the tree. Kind of adds an interesting element to it, I think.

Our college was closed all week due to this snow so I had lots of time to take photos. I'll continue to post more from time to time.

Seeing this reminds me how ready I am for summer. I'll be heading out to Jacksonville, Florida for a very quick business trip tomorrow. The trip is so quick that I won't have much of a chance to take any photos. Almost considering not taking a DLSR, but that would just feel wrong. So I'll have it with me and just see what I can find to shoot.

All the best...Mike

Creative Ways to Play with Light: Snow Day Edition

My recent blog posts have revolved around a theme of playing...goofing off with light to see what kind of results I could get. When we had some snow a few weeks ago I had a good opportunity to do just that. We received about 6 inches of snow that Sunday night and by Friday afternoon at sunset, the icicles were starting to slide off the metal roof of our house. This provided a good opportunity to see if I could get the light of the sunset to illuminate the icicles. The result is what you see here. Auto focus was going nuts trying to lock on the semi-transparent icicles, so I had to manually focus this one.

Here is a wider view showing how the sheet of ice-encrusted snow was sliding off the roof. It was fun to experiment with light to see what I could do with it.

Hope you enjoy! Mike