Lights, Camera, Action!

Sports photography is definitely not my thing.  But I needed some shots for my photog class, so the guys and I drove over to an open field, set up their dad's sawhorses, and jumped away.  They jumped, I shot.

First, I tried to demonstrate the concept of motion blur.  Not camera shake.  :)

I used my tripod, since I was already shooting in the low light of evening.  I lowered the shutter speed and closed down the aperture to f8 so the jumping guys would be blurred as they flew by.  To set the focus, I had one of the guys stand about where they would be jumping.  I focused on him, then clicked the lens to "MF" (manual focus) so the auto focus wouldn't change the setting.

Once I had things all set, I hollered for a guy to run and jump.  Using my remote shutter release, I clicked away on continuous shoot.  Trust me, I deleted about 95% of the shots I took, due to the fact that I started shooting before they were even in the frame.  Plus, I wanted them in the correct portion of the frame, at the right height, etc.  Here are a few of the ones I kept.

I wasn't too thrilled with those motion blur shots.  Again, I'm not a sports photographer!  I like the freeze-frame shot much better, so I set up for that.  In order to have a crisp image with frozen motion, the shutter speed has to be pretty fast.  I chose a low f-number (about f2.5) and set the ISO to about 500.  These settings put my shutter speed at 1/1250 second, perfect for freezing the action.  Here are a few of my favorite freeze-frame shots.

I cropped the below image slightly for sharing in my photog class.  I wanted Thomas to appear to be jumping through the sky without a reference point for landing.  The viewer is left to wonder how high off the ground he is, where he took off from, and where he's going to land.  I like his expression, too.

While we were shooting freeze-frame shots, Joseph told us to look over at the street's edge.  A guy had pulled his car over and was taking our picture through the passenger window with his smart phone!  Maybe he thought I was a reporter on assignment or something!  It was pretty funny.

After all that jumping, the guys were hungry.  Since we were working in a vacant field across the street from our favorite frozen custard joint, we pulled the car over to their parking lot and got some treats.  Mmm!

Ozark Turtle Sundae

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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P2012 Week 13 -- March 25-31

Project 2012 -- Week 13

March 25 - March 31

How to Link Up With Us

1.  Click here to read the Project 2012 Guidelines, and to get the code to place in your blog.
2.  Fill out the little form below (insert the URL of your blog post, not the main URL of your blog).
3.  Please visit others' links and leave comments; you will receive visits and comments in return!

My Week 13 Photos

Last week was Flower Week!  I can't even begin to tell you how unusual it is for us to have blooming things in this part of the country at this time of year!  I'm waiting with dread for the next snowfall that kills all this beautiful color.  But then again, maybe that won't happen!

[85] Bleeding heart

I loved the below tulips happily blooming away on the grounds where we have church each week.  I loved them so much that you'll see them as my blog header (if you're reading this post in the spring of 2012!).

[86] Tulips

The same day I took the above, these two little friends spotted me wandering around.  (I did a photo shoot with the family of the sweetheart on the left last autumn.)  My Ellie is a trustworthy and hardy companion, and she consented to these two girls using her to capture some surprisingly good images!  Katie and Megan are only 6 and 9--future photographers in the making!

[87] Girlfriends

At my parents' house, I had fun wandering around the yard oohing at my mom's pretty flowers.

[88] Purple hyacinth

[89] Grow

I had to take several kinds of action shots for my photography class, so the guys and I headed out to a field across from some local businesses.  They set up their dad's sawhorse and started running and jumping away while I attempted to capture the images I needed.  I got a lot of awesome shots--such as the below--and I'll probably have a separate post featuring the incredible jumping abilities of Danny and Thomas.  :)

[90] Jumping for fun

At one point one of the guys commented that someone had pulled over to the side of the road.  I looked over, and the driver (a guy, with his girlfriend/wife in the passenger seat) had pulled out his iPhone and was taking pictures of me taking pictures of the boys!  It was pretty funny.  Since we had the sawhorse and tripod all set up, maybe they thought we were doing a professional shoot or something.  We got a good laugh about it.

All that jumping made hungry boys, so we went across the street to our favorite dessert spot.

[91] Frozen custard

There's nothing like Andy's frozen custard.  Jacob is holding my Ozark Turtle Sundae, my usual purchase at Andy's.  It makes me smile.  :)


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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P2012 -- Week 11 -- 3/11-17

Project 2012 -- Week 11

March 11 - March 17

How to Link Up With Us

1.  Click here to read the Project 2012 Guidelines, and to get the code to place in your blog.
2.  Fill out the little form below (insert the URL of your blog post, not the main URL of your blog).
3.  Please visit others' links and leave comments; you will receive visits and comments in return!

My Week 11 Photos

I took some photos for a photography class I'm enrolled in, but didn't use them for the class.  The below image was supposed to be an example of an "S" curve.  I didn't like it for fulfilling the assignment, but I like the shapes and colors.

[71] Fallen leaf

Another "S" curve I didn't use.

 [72] "S" curve

I made the below salad for supper with family.  Yum--and it's so good for me!

[73] Raw kale and avocado salad

After Thomas showed off his jumping skills, Danny wanted in on the action.  Another warm winter day (!!) provided the opportunity for both Danny and Thomas to show off.  Below, Danny did a half-turn in mid-air and landed backwards.  Notice how they're using Dad's plastic sawhorses instead of the glass picnic table!!

[74] Fancy jump

[75] Scrunch up!

Warm winter day = break out the grill!!  (Ribs, chicken, and bratwurst.)

[76] March grilling

Storm clouds rolled in around sunset time, creating a beautiful sky.

[77] Evening storm clouds

I hope you had a great week of shooting!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Project 2012 -- WEEK 9 -- 2/26-3/3

Project 2012 -- Week 9

February 26 - March 3

How to Link Up With Us

1.  Read the Project 2012 guidelines.
2.  Take and choose pictures--from one to seven--and create a blog post with them.
3.  Copy the code below to place this button in your blog post:

<center> <a title="Project 2012" href="http://christineannephoto.blogspot.com/p/project-2012.html" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/xx297/heritagemom12/01%20Blog/Proj2012_blogbutton.jpg" /></a></center>

4.  Fill out the little form below.
5.  Insert the URL of your blog post (not the main URL of your blog).
6.  Please visit others' links and leave comments; you will receive visits and comments in return!

My Week 9 Photos

I've decided that instead of a separate link for the linky page and for my own photos, I would combine the two posts into just one.  The links will always be at the top, so you can readily see them and visit others' blogs.  Okay, here we go...

A friend posted a picture on Facebook from the evening before, and that inspired me to go out and capture a similar scene.  Jupiter and Saturn were both visible to the naked eye!  I experimented with shutter speed, since a longer one creates blur (since the earth rotates), and a shorter one won't capture the light from the planets.  I chose the below with a 53-second shutter speed.

[57] Moon, Jupiter, Venus

I noticed that the above and below images have my new copyright watermark on them.  They should've been changed to my normal proofing watermark, but oh well.  After a cold evening shooting the planets, it was back indoors to shoot some food.  :)

[58] National Pancake Day

[59] Cinnamon rolls

For Leap Day, I wanted to capture some jumping.  Thomas was extremely happy to oblige.  We started in the kitchen with him jumping straight up.  Nothing spectacular, but except for his shirt, it looks like he's floating!

[60] Floating in the kitchen

Then we ran to the cloudy and drab outdoors to capture some more spectacular shots.  Click here to see the whole jump sequence.  Yes, that is our patio table.  Yes, it is glass.  (Fernando told me we were crazy to try that; I hadn't even thought about it at the time!)

[61] Happy Leap Day!

We had thunder, lightning, and hail on Friday!  It was the first storm of the year.

[62] March hail

I love the below close-up of the hail, which was pea-sized.  There's nothing exciting about the shot, but I managed to capture a splash to the left of center.  I thought that was pretty cool.

[63] Hail on the stoop

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Project 52 -- A Great Leap

I'm linking up with Darcy for Project 52.

Click her Project 52 button above to see what it's all about!

This week's challenge:  A Great Leap

A quick note:  After my photography class Thursday night, I was all set download, edit, and upload my images for this week's challenge.  When I walked into the house, I looked into the dining room and saw the computer in pieces--hundreds of them--all over the dining room table.  The new computer components they had ordered arrived late that afternoon; as soon as I left for class, they began the change-out process.  I didn't get a computer back until this afternoon!

My photo:

My thoughts:

For this challenge, I chose the obvious photo--a literal leap.  My son Danny (18) is the acrobat, and would have been happy to jump for me.  However, he had lots of homework to finish for his college classes, so he was unavailable.  Thomas (you may remember him from last week's challenge), was very happy to oblige for this particular challenge.


The setup:

All this shot required was decent weather and our patio table.  Oh, and a very jumpy teenager.  :)

I wanted to freeze Thomas' action (as opposed to blur), so I set the ISO as high as Ellie could be set, and then set the aperture wide, but not too wide.  When I was ready for the multi-exposure shot, I set the focus on the edge of the table, then hollered to Thomas to run and jump.  I chose the above shot from the third jump series.  Below you can see the entire series of shots.


Camera settings:

• ISO 1600
• Manual mode
• 50mm portrait lens
• Aperture at f2.5
• 1/640 second shutter speed

End note--my husband just walked past, saw the photos, and exclaimed, "He did that over a glass table?  You guys were insane."


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Jump for Joy!

Although I shot this family on a beautiful late autumn afternoon, I'm posting these particular images today.  After all, it is the season of joy!  When I think of joy, I recall the phrase jumping for joy.  Joy is something we cannot contain--it wants to burst from us in movement and in voice--whether jumping, shivering with excitement, singing, or shouting, joy must come out!  Enjoy these mid-flight shots.

The boys were "rewarded" with trampoline time if they smiled for me when I shot their portraits.  They put forth a tremendous effort to do as I asked as I posed them among the trees, so their mom freed them to jump.  Which they did.

Caleb "jumped" out of this shot.  :)

I love how Katie "fit" herself into the corner of the frame.

Of the three siblings, Katie was the wild one!  The boys kept trying to hold her back.

Look at that Michael Jordan move!

This is one of my favorites--Russel did an awesome job scrunching up just a bit to fit himself into my viewfinder frame.  ;)

Be glad in the LORD and rejoice,

you righteous ones;

And shout for joy,

all you who are upright in heart.

Psalm 32:11 NASB

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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