Dog, Loon, Lake, Chip--Steel Drums!

In other words, a totally random day at Lake Bonaparte.

This particular day was our friends' first full day at the lake.  We eventually gave them The Total Lake Experience (you can read Part I or Part II if you want to see what we do for our friends).  Our random activities included a visit to Winter Bay, where we swam, splashed, played Frisbee, read books, and took pictures.  There always seems to be a dog or two at Winter Bay, and Maya was there this time.  Here she is in all her Labrador-ness.

Labs have an indefatigable energy that makes me want to go take a nap.  Several of us were tossing the Frisbee around, and Maya chased it every time.  She swam out to one of the guys, and right before she got to him, he threw the Frisbee to someone else.  She'd turn right around and keep swimming toward that person, and on and on it went.  She never bothered swimming closer to shore to get her legs under her, or to take a rest.  We endured probably close to an hour of her energy until some kids came along and found some sticks for her to fetch.

We took off from Winter Bay for a casual, long ride back to the lake house.  Upon leaving the bay, someone spotted a loon.  The below was the best I could do.  I would love for Ellie to really capture this elusive bird!

Some sights from the boat:

Huckleberry Rock

Little Birch Island

Upon arriving back at the lake house, we commenced making dinner.  It's nice when teenage guys help out, which they did with gusto.  Because teenage guys are naturally perpetually hungry, we broke out a bag of chips, only to have one of the guys discover the below inside.

Totally random image of 13 tortilla chips fused together

After dinner, we drove in to Carthage and the pavilion where they hold their weekly farmers markets.  Throughout this summer, the town hosted weekly concerts, and this night featured a steel drum club which performed for us.  The drums were loud, but otherwise the concert was fun.

They had several different ability-based musicians who played and/or entertained us throughout the evening.  During several numbers, some of the non-players danced through the audience.

I love the below shot of their last number.  Here's where I'll get technical with you.  With ISO set at 800 (due to low-light conditions), I was able to capture some clear shots.  But when the whole steel drum crew came out and played, clapped, and danced their way through the song, there was a lot of movement that would be difficult to capture.

I was able to hold Ellie steady enough for a 1/30-second shot--steady enough so that non-moving objects (ceiling beams, speakers, the blue shirt of the boy at lower right) were clear.  Obviously, at 1/30 second, I was going to capture some motion blur of the dancers and musicians.  But motion blur can be a good thing!  I love how the blur shows that people were in motion--can you see some of their feet just off the ground?  They were clapping and jumping up, and this shot captured just the right mood and spirit.

ISO 800, 17-80mm lens at 26mm, f5.6 at 1/30 second

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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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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