MY YEAR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

2017 has been a memorable year of twists and turns causing stress and anxiety for people around the globe.  The events and their implications will be debated in history books for decades. This post is not about them. It is about how photography brought me great joy. So, in the waning hours of 2017, I want to recap my year of photography.

The year began with photographing the Tuscarora High School Girls Basketball Team.  The Coach, who worked with my wife, asked her if I would take pictures at their games. One of my pictures the previous season was printed in the Loudoun Times Mirror.  He wanted the team to get more press coverage.  Of course I said I would. He gave me a pass so I could get into the games for free. In January, February, and March I spent a lot of time at girls basketball games and a couple boys games.  A few of my photos made it to the print editions of the LTM, while several others were posted on their website.

A photographer friend did me a huge favor for the last home game. It was their regional championship game. He let me borrow his Canon EF2.8 70-200mm L series lens. The jump in quality was amazing. The price tag was too high at the time. However, after having another photo published in September, my wife encouraged me to buy the lens. It has been a workhorse for me ever since.

The experiences with photographing the basketball team planted a seed of taking my hobby more seriously. This blog was a product of the heightened interest. I went into it with some hesitation because I didn’t think I had much to add to the discussion over the craft and its techniques. It began as a way of combining photography and writing hobbies to keep my thoughts together and keep track of what I accomplish. The few comments I received so far were a surprise because I have not promoted the site or let many people know about it.

After taking pictures sporadically over the summer, it kicked into high gear in the fall.  One of the seniors at the high school asked my wife if I would come out an take pictures at their first game of the season. Of course, I was more than happy to oblige. After the LTM printed a photo from the game, we bought my new lens and the school Athletic Director gave me a Media Pass. I photographed at all of the team’s football games all the way to the State championship game. Along the way, the LTM and the Alexandria Gazette Packet printed some of my photos and posted many more.

My biggest photographic disappointment of the year was the Fall colors. We had a lot of rain this year and the foliage was looking good. Everyone expected the leaves to be very colorful, but it was not meant to be.  The weather stayed warm longer than normal and made some abrupt changes. The colors were dull and inconsistent. They were so dull that my landscape photographer friends didn’t make any treks to get pictures.

My year is rounding out with the girls’ and boys’ basketball teams again. They are a very strong team with a 9-0 record so far. I’ve only been to a few games so far due to conflicts with the football schedule. But once they get started in 2018 you can bet I will be there to capture what may be a run for the State title. If so, I plan to be there.

2018 promises to be a good year for my photography. I have been tapped to take photos at my boss’ retirement ceremony. This is nothing new – I photographed three retirement ceremonies for Coast Guard – but I hope to do better with my newer equipment and skills. I will be taking more sports photos beyond basketball, including soccer, lacrosse, and maybe volleyball. Some many things to photograph!!

TOUCHING MOMENTS

Some readers may be drawn in by the headline with expectations that this entry will talk about those moments where the underdog overcomes great obstacles to finally win a championship. Or a player extends a hand of friendship to a losing player to comfort them in their moment of sorrow.  This entry is not about those moments.

The touching moments I am talking about are those rare fractions of a second where an athlete is barely in contact with the ball. It takes a lot of luck to capture such a moment. Shooting basketball and football games over the past year have produced a few. Shots of the quarterback making a pass or a receiver catching the ball generally show the ball inches away from the hand, or in firm contact.  Basketball games have a lot of contact as players dribble or shoot, but tipoffs are harder to get because they only occur once a game, or maybe twice if you are lucky. Last winter, I was lucky to capture a tipoff when BOTH players are just touching the ball simultaneously. This past Sunday at the State Title Football Game, I got lucky again and got the football just as it was leaving the quarterback's fingers. Lots of luck was involved.

PHOTOS IN THE PAPER

Last Thursday, I was honored to find three of my photos in the print edition of the Loudoun Times Mirror newspaper! It is always great to see your photos and name in print.

THE TOUCHDOWN CELEBRATION VERSUS THE DIVE

Saturday evening was the Virginia State Division 5 Semifinal football game. It was an exciting game that came down to a field goal at the final buzzer. There were a lot of great photographic opportunities along the way. Here are two of my favorites. The first shows the players celebrating a touchdown as the runner is holding the ball over the goal line. The second shows the runner diving toward the end zone, although he came up a foot short. The local paper used the first one to illustrate the online article about the game. Personally, I like the dive better because it has better action. But the editor chose the first one because it shows the excitement of the players at getting a touchdown. It just shows that the value of a photo is in its intended use. 

Catching the Key Plays

Halfback Leron West passing for Touchdown

Friday was the Virginia Region 5C football championship game between the Tuscarora Huskies and the Stone Bridge Bulldogs at the “Dog Pound,” the Stone Bridge’s stadium. Stone Bridge was undefeated and had previously won against Tuscarora by a single point in the regular season. It was a perfect day for photographers. Bright and sunny. I could set my ISO to 800 and f-stop to around 5.6 and still get very fast shutter speeds. At least until late in the game when the sun was setting.

Kyle Jenkins catching Leron West's touchdown pass

The game was exciting and fitting for a championship game. The Bulldogs scored first but the Huskies scored three more in the first half, two of which were scored in the final 41 seconds of the half. The third touchdown was with five seconds to go on a halfback option pass from Leron West (# 4) to Kyle Jenkins (# I). Fortunately, I was in a position where I was able to capture the pass and the reception.

An exciting second half came down to the final three minutes. Leron West scored a touchdown to tie the game at 27 all. The ensuing extra point kick put the Huskies ahead. But it was not over. With less than a minute to go, the Bulldogs got a chance to win with a field goal, but it fell short and the Huskies won the championship.

Leron West scoring winning touchdown in last minute

I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to be the team’s unofficial photographer and get many pictures posted by the local weekly paper. Being able to capture key plays like the ones on Friday make it even more exciting.  

Blessed by the Photography Gods or Luck

Action photography is part preparation and part luck. Take this photo from a high school football game. By being about 15 to 20 yards downfield, I was blessed with having an open view as the quarterback scrambled through the line and dashed for a long touchdown run. Not only was it a blessing to have an unobstructed view of the run, I was doubly blessed to capture the defender running in parallel. I love how the defenders eye is just visible over the helmet. That is luck!

STADIUM LIGHTING ISSUES

Friday I went to a football game at a new high school stadium. I say new, but it is five years old. Maybe “newer” would be a better description. The stadium lights were lower than the ones I see at Tuscarora High School and caused a lot of glare on the artificial turf. I suppose a polarizing filter would help, but the loss of a f-stop could be overcome. But I didn’t have it with me. Oh well.

Glare wasn’t the big problem – it was white balance. My camera was set for auto white balance. One shot would be okay, and the next couple would be too warm. I tried different settings, but they were worse. At times it looked like the camera was adjusting the white balance so that it went warm when the focal point was on the blue jerseys and okay when it was on white jerseys. But even that was inconsistent. My only option was to continue and hope for the best.

One of the professionals told me the problem was the stadium lights had a flicker to them and the color was changing. Not that you could see it with the naked eye. It was only when the pictures were taken. His camera had a flicker correction that would slightly delay the shot based on the flicker. Mine does not. The situation got better as the game went on and the stadium lights got hotter and slightly more consistent. But the flicker never went away.

Back to back shots on fast burst mode.

IT ALMOST GOT AWAY!

This pretty butterfly fluttered by me and landed on deck the other day. I quickly dashed inside and up the stairs to the office to get my camera. Fortunately, the butterfly was still there, slowly opening and closing its wings in the bright sunlight. Glancing at the LCD screen after the first shot showed that the exposure was good. Click, click, click. Several shots later the butterfly took off. I clicked the preview button anxious to see how the shots came out. “NO CARD” “NO CARD” flashed at my unbelieving eyes. Darn (or something a little harsher). The card was in the computer to download pictures from the previous night’s football game!

I was upset with myself for missing out on the pictures. But redemption arrived about half an hour later. The butterfly came back and landed on the deck for another break. This time I had the camera WITH the SD card in place. A lesson learned. 

SETTLING FOR A SQUIRREL

Blue Jays are beautiful as I posted back on April 29. The different blue hues combined with splashes of white and black make an interesting patchwork of colors. So you can imagine by joy the other day when I saw a Blue Jay perched on the arm of a chair on my deck no more than 10 feet away. As it quickly flew away, a second one flew by going in the other direction. 

Of course, my camera was in another room.  I got it and put out some sunflower seeds on the deck rail hoping that it would attract them back.  No such luck. But a squirrel sure enjoyed them! So, I settled for taking pictures of the little ham.

Parachute

Three Navy Seals parachuted into RFK Stadium before the DC United soccer game at sunset. This was the best shot I got.  Not my best, but nice to look at anyway.  

A Navy Seal parachuting into RFK Stadium in Washington DC for Military Appreciation Day.

MORE FOOTBALL PICTURES

Time slips by so quickly.  A couple weeks ago I had this post ready but never got around to finishing it. Well, here it is - finally.

Another Friday evening, another football game to practice sports photography with my new lens.  The game began at 5:30 instead of 7:00 because lightning had blown out the lights on one side of the stadium early in the week. They were fixed in time for the game but it was already rescheduled so it could be played in daylight. What a blessing for photographers!  The greater flexibility in settings (lower ISO, higher f stops, faster shutter speed) resulted in better photos.  My photos were much sharper during the daylight hours than later in the game when the sun went down.

Luck and the better lighting enabled me to get some good shots of the action.  But one thing I learned is that a great shot of action is not always what is interesting to newspaper editors.  Two points:

First, Michelle helped me pick out some top shots to send to the Loudoun Times Mirror. She has a better eye for which images have the most media appeal and rejected several that I thought were good.  She said the one below was my “money shot” – the quarterback fighting for yardage as a player tries to pull him down.  Sure enough, the Mirror used it in their online article about the game. 

Second, one of my favorites was a touchdown catch. I sent to the Alexandria Gazette Packet newspaper along with one of the quarterback scrambling and another one. My guess was that they might use the touchdown photo and post the others online. Wrong. They used the quarterback scrambling in their print edition. Hmmm. 

This one was printed in the paper.

Add caption

Lens Envy – Revisited

My second post in early March discussed my “lens envy” for those with professional-level lenses. A friend let me borrow his Canon EF 70-200/2.8L IS II USM lens to shoot a basketball game. Being able to go down to f2.8 and the higher quality glass made a big improvement over my commercial zoom lens.  I have coveted this high-quality lens ever since - putting it on my wish list for ‘someday.’  That someday has finally arrived! We decided it was time to get it after getting a gallery of my football photos posted by the newspaper.  Last Thursday it arrived and my lens envy is gone!! (Although I am sure at some point in the future I will want additional lenses. But that is for years ahead.)

  

The initial shakedown of the new lens was at the Tuscarora v Broad Run High School football game on Friday September 1^st. It lived up to all my expectations. The quality of the images was much better than my other lenses, especially in the stadium lighting.  Shooting at 200mm, as opposed to 300mm with my old lens, yielded better images of distant action that could be cropped and used. 

Something funny happened late in the game.  A couple parents were on the sideline taking photos.  One I knew and another was usually nearby.  We were comparing images off and on to see if anyone captured a key play. I was helping the one I knew with getting her settings right for the conditions, when the other woman walked by an muttered, “Now I have lens envy!”  All I could do is smile and think, “I’ve been there!”  

Seeing Your Photos in the Newspaper

It is always a thrill to see one of your photos published in a newspaper or online by a media outlet. My first time was the winter before last when I sent a photo of the star of the girls’ basketball team driving for a layup to our local weekly newspaper.  They used it in their online article about the game. It was a big thrill and gave me some confidence to try it again. 

Fast forward to this past winter and the girls’ basketball coach asked me to be the team photographer.  The result was several photos being used in online articles and photo galleries as well as several being published in the print edition of the paper. The largest displayed were about 4”x4”.  It was very rewarding to see, and much welcomed by the girls.

The Tuscarora High School football season kicked off on August 25^th with a home game against King George.  The Huskies won 35-0 and I got some great photos. I sent some to the Loudoun Times Mirror and they used one of the photos to illustrate their Week 1 review of the football games in their online version. They also published it in the print edition on Thursday in an article about the upcoming game of the week.  The best part for me was the photo was printed in 5x7 format under one of the same size by their pro.  This was by far the best recognition of my photos.

My photo on the bottom

The photo the paper selected was not my favorite from that night.   I was lucky to get it between players and referees running down the sideline. I liked it, but felt there were several more with better action.  But, after seeing the paper use it to illustrate their article I started to realize the context of the photo in use is as important as the quality of the photo itself.  

The image they used was cropped from what I sent to them. This also taught me a lesson about what I should do before sending the pictures – crop to focus on the action.  I have been looking at my action photos with a different eye since then.  There is a lot of action to come this season!

Coming in for a Landing

The birds have flocked to our feeder this summer. It took a while for them to find it.  But once they did - they have been quite active. So have the squirrels!  There were 3 on the deck yesterday.  Earlier this summer we had a family of cardinals - Mom, Dad, and at least two young ones.  They seem to have moved on. Now it is purple finches and sparrows.  
 
 

I grabbed my camera to see if I could catch a few of the birds flying around the feeder. I set the shutter to rapid burst – 7 frames a second and played around with my settings.  I used a polarizing filter and a -1/3^rd stop exposure compensation.  My initial settings were f16 (aperture priority) at ISO 1000 because it was a bright sunny day.  The shutter speeds ranged from 1/125 sec to 1/160 sec, which was too long to freeze the birds in flight. 

My second set was done at f5.0 at ISO 2000.  The results were better – shutter speeds changed to 1/2500 sec.  Still some blur on the wings, but some came out okay.  Finally, I changed to f5.0 at ISO 4000 and had much better success. The noise increased, but at least the images captured the birds without blur on the wings.  More experiments to come!

The Beautiful Glory of Morning Glories

Purple Morning Glory on our deck

Morning glories greet the day with their blue hued petals facing the rising sun. They survive until afternoon when they curl up and begin developing seeds that will replenish the flower bed in the next year.  

My Mother grew blue Morning Glories when I was young. She still grows some, but not as many. I grew some off our back deck for several years. Most were blue ones. But I also planted some red and purple ones as well. The blue and red varieties were behind the main part of the deck and created a green and blue curtain that partially shielded us from the outside world.  Eventually I stopped planting them every year. The blue and red ones kept returning every year but the color deteriorated in each generation until they eventually only displayed a reduced number of small white flowers.

Backlit Morning Glory

Purple Morning Glories are another story. They were planted around the gazebo and climbed up the lattice below and intertwined in the deck railing. Each year, several of the plants come up and continue to present the same deep purple as they always did.

One thing about Morning Glories is the different color patterns you see depending on how you look at them.  Looking straight on like the one in the upper left gives you the reflected color. But a whole different color pattern emerges when it is backlit by the bright sunlight as the other pictures show. Backlighting helps bring out the structure of the flower and gives a different color entirely.   

The Cardinal!

A couple of cardinals have been visiting our deck recently. Usually it was the female enjoying our bird seed. Well, a couple weeks ago the couple turned into a family of four. It looks like the young ones are a male and female. As the picture shows, the male is very bright red - cardinal red you could say. 😏




The two young ones don't have their color yet. One looks very disheveled. My friends and I call it the awkward teen! It won't be long and they will disappear. So, I'm enjoying it while I can.

Purple Finch

Purple Finch on my deck

Canon EOS 70D, ISO1000, f6.3, 1/4000, -0.3step

My bird feeder is starting to get more visitors. Last Friday I had a couple purple finches hanging out on the deck. I slipped the sliding door open and was able to get some pictures before it took off. The Audubon field guide information online says they are declining in the northeast. My Mother gets a lot at her feeder in Pennsylvania. 

THE GERMAN REFORMED CHURCH

German Reformed Church, Fannettsburg, PA
Canon 70D f7.1(-1/3) 1/800sec iso200 29mm

Just about a mile north of my hometown Fannettsburg, Pennsylvania is this old German Reformed Church. Built in 1844 of local limestone, it served congregations for many years. For several decades, it has been used for one annual service in mid-June. A different priest or minister presides each year.  This year the ceremony is on my birthday, so I plan to attend.

WWI Grave Marker
Canon 70D f7.1(-1/3) 1/400sec iso200 55mm

Many of my ancestors or their relatives are buried there. My great uncle Lynn Mort (My Mother’s Father’s brother) is one of them. He died of the Spanish influenza during World War I, or ‘World War’ as it says on the marker. An American Legion post in California named after him wanted a picture of his tombstone for a ceremony. .  

Blue Jay

Blue Jay: Canon EOS70D, f7.1 (-1/3 step) 1/60sec. iso 200 200mm

One of the things I enjoy when we visit my parents is trying to get a good picture of the birds that flock to their feeders. Finches, sparrows, nuthatches, woodpeckers, and hummingbirds are frequent visitors. An occasional cardinal or Blue Jay make appearances. Last weekend was one of those times. This pretty Blue Jay kept flying in and out. He would never stay very long. But after patiently waiting I got a few shots of him. This is the best one.  

BASKETBALL BANQUET

Tuscarora and Atlee High School Tipoff 2-25-17
Canon EOS 70D, 1/640sec., f2.8 80mm ISO 4000

A week ago, the Tuscarora High School Girls Basketball team had their end of season banquet.  It was a nice to see the girls enjoying the recognition for their achievement throughout the season. The Team Mom had a student develop a slide show from the picture I took at the games and showed them throughout the event. The coach recognized me for the photography.  The best part? Getting a thank you card from the girls with notes thanking me for the pictures.

I have long enjoyed taking pictures at sports events. It has mostly been youth sports as a spectator.  But it was different this season.  Last year, the local paper used a picture I took, as a spectator.  The coach liked it and asked me to be the team photographer.  I accepted and had a great time at the games and improving my skills.  I even succeeded in getting four photos in the print edition of the Loudoun Times Mirror newspaper! 

One picture kept eluding me until the final game – a good tipoff shot!.  Using a fast shutter burst I o finally got one with both girls touching the ball.  Already I am missing the games and look forward to next season.

LOOKING BACK AT SLIDES!

Last Thursday our office staff gathered around the conference room to view 35mm slides from the Exxon Valdez oil spill.  Throwback Thursday!  It wasn’t planned that way but it fits.  Several of us were old photographers that cut our teeth on film, not digital formats.  As the projector did its Kachunk, Kachunk to advance the slides, we naturally started talking about what it was like to shoot film, much to the amusement and sometimes surprise of the younger staff. 

Kachunk.

How many readers remember those days?  You would finish your roll of 24 or 36 shots and ship them off to the Kodak or another processing center.  Then the wait.  Maybe a week or two later the prints or slides would arrive in the mail.  Only then would you know how well they came out. Maybe they would be great.  But usually some would be out of focus or over/under exposed.  That was the way it was.  No instant feedback on your quality back then.

Kachunk.

There were also the different types of film to choose from.  Kodachrome, Echtachrome, etc. Each had their pluses and minuses.  Regardless of which film, each picture had a price.  Wasted shots were money down the drain.  The only solution was to be careful about composition and exposure. 

Kachunk.

We all have boxes of photos or slides.  Each box of slides labeled with the subject and dates (if we thought to write it down).  Packs of photos, hopefully with the negatives. Packs of negatives by themselves.  They are supposed to be stored in cool dry locations to preserve them. Most probably are not stored properly.

Kachunk.

The biggest change from the film to digital age I noticed wasn’t these things. It is the quality of the images and my perspective on good resolution.  Many slides were very good images that were what I considered to be sharp images at the time.  But years of shooting digital images with better equipment has changed my views.  What I considered years ago to be great images are now just good.  Or maybe only average.  It is not just digital versus film.  I noticed this same phenomenon as I look back at my digital images taken with older digital cameras. 

Kachunk.

My conclusion is that the quality of photography keeps advancing, just like the slides in the projector. Kachunk... Kachunk... Kachunk...  

DAWN OF SPRING DOLDRUMS

Today is the first day of Spring.  Visions of flowers and awakening vegetation providing opportunities for nice photos dance through your head at the mention of Spring.  But, alas, we are in the photographic doldrums. A late winter storm last week covered the ground for days and is now finally disappearing.  But there is just bleak landscape to look at.  A few flowers are starting to sprout.  Nothing of visual interest. A few weeks from now it should be better.  Let’s hope!

SIGNS OF SPRING

A mild Winter is giving way to Spring.  The first flowers of Spring are appearing and adding color to the bleak post Winter landscape.  This little beauty caught my eye as I got home the other day.  I had just enough time to take a quick snapshot with my iPhone.  

LENS ENVY

Okay, I admit it. I have lens envy.  You know – that feeling you get when you shooting with your consumer level lenses and you see someone with a big high quality lens that screams “I’m a pro!” Immediately you believe your pictures can’t be as good as theirs.  But that is not necessarily true.  As one such pro said, “the quality of the picture starts six inches behind the camera.”  That is true.  But it is still nice to have a great lens for the situation. 

This winter I have been taking pictures for the girls’ basketball team using a Canon EF-S 55-250mm 1:4-5.6 IS STM lens.  Unfortunately, many of the gyms have very bad lighting so I had to use a high ISO to get a shutter speed fast enough to freeze action.  Even then many pictures left a lot to be desired or needed a significant amount of post processing work.  The composition and action I captured were good enough for the local paper to use in their online editions and a couple printed editions. 

I was getting along using my basic lens and ignored my lens envy.  That is until a friend let me borrow his EF 70-200 1:2.8 L series IS II USM lens.  Wow!  What a difference it made.  Being able to shoot at f2.8 enabled me to use a lower ISO and reduce noise.  The images were much sharper and brighter. My need for post processing was significantly reduced.  So now my lens envy is back!  You know what is on my wish list for my birthday and next Christmas!!! 

KICKING OFF MY BLOG

Two of my favorite hobbies are photography and writing.  So I guess having a blog makes sense from that standpoint.  But I never gave writing a blog much thought until I needed to set up a photo sharing site.  This winter I was asked to take pictures of the high school girls basketball team and post them to share with the parents.  A little research led me to choose the Pixieset site but I needed a website to sign up.  My solution? Set up a blog site.  And that is the genesis of this blog.

This blog site has sat without entries for a couple months.  Why?  Well, I was a little reluctant to get started blogging until I had a better idea of what I wanted to say.  Then I got busy taking pictures at the games and ….  Okay, Okay. Enough with excuses. I’ve finally decided it is time to start posting my pictures along with my thoughts and experiences with photography.

My first serious interest in photography started in the mid-1970s when I bought a Canon FTb SLR all manual film camera.  I enjoyed it for many years until I got tired of the shutter breaking.  The all-manual camera gave me a good understanding of exposure settings and adjustments within the limits of the camera. 

After several years using different cameras, I purchased a Canon Rebel XTi kit as an economical way to get into digital photography.  That camera served me well until I dropped it and broke the lens.  Eventually I replaced it with my current camera, a Canon 70D and took a couple classes to improve my craft. 

Throughout the years, I have accumulated many photos from snapshots up through serious shots.  Family events, sports, landscapes, and wildlife are my most common collections.  This blog will be used to show some of the better pictures and, in some cases, write a little about the picture or its subject.