freedom technique

That title should give you a clue that... I couldn't come up with a technique to consciously practice for May. My intention with photographs this month was actually to take a lot of them. I was successful at that! Below are my favorites for a variety of reasons....

This one might not be a well structured shot, but it is what I got as the moment presented itself: Mom blowing out the candles blazing for her 70th birthday celebration. I'd love to be more prepared for this type of shot - I wasn't conscious of my camera settings until it was too late!

Probably what I love most about this shot of Lily, a puppy I met at O'hare airport on a layover, has more to do with how sweet she was than any skill on my part. I was attempting to use as slow an ISO as I could and still do hand held camera work. We were inside under florescent lights - I got this with ISO 400 & f4.0. Believe me, I took many hand held's of Lily, plenty of which looked "airbrushed" like waterfalls!

Twilight riverside. Lamplights has just been lit and it created a wonderful opportunity to play with contrast.

Maple leaf funnel. Playing with close up work and framing fascinates me.

This one was more a an experiment in focusing, so many elements to play with: surface, depth, reflections. Used f4.5... a photographer told me that was the "sweet spot," if I wanted everything in focus. Actually he suggested a range of f4.5-5.6 for working with ISO 200, which was the speed of film used above.

Airbrushing Water

When in a high school photography class I learned long how to photograph water to make it look like it had been airbrushed. When I switched over to digital I could not remember how to do the technique. With my recent jaunts into photography technique books I ran across an explanation on how to recreate the effect. While in Oregon visiting my sister I took advantage of the many spring waterfalls to practice the technique. Since I tend to 'freeze' water motion (I like the ice effect) I decided to play with the water motion and try to capture different feelings of motion rather than simply frozen..... don't know if I was successful or not ;o)

Lacrosse Theme

I started the month without a definite theme, but pretty soon it became apparent that the majority of my pictures were going to be lacrosse related, so I just went with it. I decided to work on my action shots, panning and a new way to monochrome the background while keeping the player in color. I will have to do this as a gift at the end of the season for the four senior boys pictured here, so this was great practice. I'll be done with the boys after this season, but don't fret, this is Kelly's first year playing girls lacrosse so I can refine my techniques for the next three years with the girls team. I only got to photograph at one game though before Kelly suffered a concussion, so back to the boys for a bit.....