Happy Spring!

This past Saturday was beautiful. It's been awhile since I've done any nature shots, so I took my camera along for a walk. I was surprised to see flowers blooming already... I can't wait until the warm weather really kicks in!

Strike a Pose - My shoot with Chaz :)

I love doing photo shoots with Chaz because he is willing to do most anything to make a standout photograph. This may have been the most bizarre shoot we've done... consisting of train jumping, dumpster diving, and almost having the cops called on us. (Trust me, we didn't break any laws)

We work really well together. We both contribute to the creativity, poses, and locations that go into these images.

Although we have done several shoots previous to this one, we always find a way to make each outing distinct from the other bodies of work.

I have driven by one of the locations multiple times. Everytime I always think to myself that I want to photograph there. It is an old train station with empty train cars and old trains that do not run any longer.

Coincidently, the colors of the train cars matched up with colors of the jacket Chaz had on. The vivid orange/red against navy blue created an eye catching contrast.

I did almost the entire shoot with my Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens. I have been pretty attached to my 24-70 f/2.8, but I did want to get some wide angles and ended up using the 17-85 for each image you see.

High School Cheer

This past weekend I spent my Friday night and Saturday at the DeltaPlex shooting the state finals for high school cheerleading.

I've never been to or seen an actual competition and definitely found a new respect for the 'sport'. These girls have a very admirable energy and passion.

This was my first experience shooting action with the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM Lens. I have the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0 L USM but found that I am often in situations where I need that extra stop. The f/2.8 focuses very fast, but is SO heavy. My hand kept cramping up, but I got used to the weight after some time. Without the Image Stabilizer there would have been noticeable camera shake in my images. It's really difficult to keep still while hand holding. I am sure I will invest in this lens someday.












There was a 'no flash photography' rule, which is understandable. I was forced to shoot at ISO 3200 which is something I would normally try to avoid. The company I was shooting for runs their images through the Noise Ninja before posting them online. This program is something that I am interested in purchasing... I heard that the price is somewhat reasonable and if an image is extremely noisy you can run it through the "ninja" several times. I'd like to find out if there are any drawbacks to using this- Possibly something that I would like to have for wedding images taken in low light at a dim reception hall. To remove some of the color noise in the posted cheerleading shots I applied the Reduce Noise Filter in Photoshop.

I would love to get more involved in sports photography. I could feel how I improved from Friday night to Saturday night. Most of my experience with action photography has been outdoors with water sports- so I am glad that this opportunity provided me with experience in shooting fast movement under low light. I got in a rhythm and concentrated on what I needed to do to make powerful images, both technically and aesthetically. The emotion that these girls had made for some strong photos.