Family and Friends

So I've been doing a bit of traveling for work. I've been to Boston twice, once in February and once in early April. I am very impressed with Boston and hope I can continue to visit. It is a beautiful, historic city with fantastic brain power. On my second trip I tried to arrange a shoot with locals, and ended up with something bigger an better. I met 12 other dgrinners in D.C. for a shoot on April 12th! What a great day!! I was graciously hosted by Christina, who had joined the preshoot trip last fall. We started early and met a whole bunch of grinners over the course of the day. Some we had known from the Montana shootout (schmoo & zwiebluemen, davev & katev, grimace & kendal), others were new to us(visualxpressions & cassisp, eorin1). It was one of the best days that I've had the pleasure of experiencing, and I hope that I can wrangle many more like that.

Last week I went to Vancouver on a course, then to Seattle area to visit a customer and friends and relations. Unlike the DC trip, this one had very little photography. It was about touching base, getting to be face to face, catching up, rekindling and building relationships. It was very, very good and really reinforced the message that, whether one is talking about business relationships or friendships old or new, nothing - absolutely nothing works as well as being together!

Macro Photography & Garden Photography

I love the garden. It provides so many opportunities for observing and capturing natural settings and beautiful scenes. Our garden here isn't nearly as developed and lush with flower beds as our past garden. I also haven't really figured out how to do great macros with my Canon equipment yet. The 100mm macro is pretty high on my wish list.
I just participated in a thread at dpreview about lucky shots - and a couple of the ones that I chose were garden macros. A pair of mating spiders, dew drops on the whirls of a mallow blossom.


A reminder of how much I used to shoot in my garden, and how I should get out there and shoot some more.

I came across a site with some truly inspirational garden macro photography recently, MacroArtInNature
There is really beautiful work there, and technical discussion. I suspect I will visit it often.

The problem for me though is that garden season here happens to coincide with soccer season, and my time to do both is limited. I know there are some cool photos from last summer, not yet edited, on my hard drive.

So, here is to a great summer and a great season of garden photography.

A Soccer Mom with a Digicam

My first digital camera was the Sony DSC F707. If you are familiar with that camera at all, you will know that it was the highest end 'prosumer' camera available at the time. The 707 was a truly wonderful camera, and the closest that the average bear could get to a dslr at the time. I bought it, after doing 'research' in magazines and on line, because I thought it would allow me to take action shots of my kids playing soccer. That was in late 2000 or early 2001, when the kids were 10, 8 and 6!!!! The 707 was an amazing camera, and it actually did a decent job of taking action photos - outside, in good light, with the Olympus teleconvertor. But it did a decent job. I read photography forums, and sports photography forums and spent a lot of time learning the basics of good exposure, good composition, good sports shots. I was soooo proud of those photos, and worked very hard at being sure that they were more than snapshots. I shared them through my first on line web gallery, pbase, and was immensely offended when they were lifted without permission. I shared them on photography forums too, especially the Sony Talk Forum on dpreview. I got lots and lots of feedback, mostly good. I discovered a passion, and was driven to improve.

Looking back, the 707 probably wasn't the right tool for the job. It was very, very good, for the time and the price, but it wasn't a sports camera. It was, however, better than good at still life and macro photography. The swivel body and large lcd made getting the 'right angle' on insect or flower close ups a peice of cake. And it was exceptional as a teaching device. The feedback loop of digital photography, combined with the basic lessons of exposure and composition, makes learning fun and immediate and inexpensive. I took very many good photographs, including good sports photos, with that camera, and credit working with the 707 and wanting to progress at sports photography, to leading me to where I am now.

Which brings me to the title of todays post. I started as a soccer mom with a digicam - a label that I really, really resented when it was used to describe me by an 'old school' sports photographer. But, looking back, it fit. However, what I did with that digicam and the resources that I sought out to learn more about the art of photography, has led me to feel confident in my ability to get the shot, and to deliver product to paying customers. However, the fact that I have a dSLR is no longer unique. The option of shooting with a dSLR has become available to interested hobbyists, as shooting with the 707 opened the world to me. So I need, more than ever, to be able to deliver/provide a product that stands out - to get the shot that goes beyond a technically good photograph. Which, of course, gives me more fuel to stoke the fire of this passion.

I love photography. It is the one thing in my life of which I have control - I choose when, I choose what, I choose how long. It is an activity that I want to do alone, but share the results with everyone. It is an activity that I enjoy discussing - I love to talk gear, technique, result...anything photography. It is my passion. And I am still a soccer mom with a digital camera.

POST SCRIPT:
Interestingly, as Andy mentions in his comment, the NYT recently wrote about moms & cameras. One of the interviewees of the article has posted this

A Mauve Day

Way back when dh and I were looking to buy our first home, our realtor introduced us to the term 'menopause mauve'. She used this term to describe the decorating schemes typical of homes owned and decorated by middle aged women, back in the days before 'staging for sale' was the thing to do. I have adopted the term lately. Mauve days are days when I am agitated, emotional, generally out of sorts and it is all the fault of those damn hormones (or lack there of).

We woke up to fresh snow! (That is enough to throw anyone into the emotional dumps, and I'm no exception there.) We have had snow since very early October - that's more than six months folks! Enough already.

I took the camera to work with me (after all fresh snow should be good for something), hopeful that I'd find a LPS 3 entry en route. Nope. On the way home, I drove south through the farmland. Nothing really inspiring, although I did come across a driving range and picnic grounds under several inches of water. May go back when the sun is shining because there could be a shot there.

The highlight of my day was to notice Spike sitting on a bough of the spruce tree - about 15 feet up. A good wind would have blown him out. What possessed him to climb up the spruce tree and then sleep on a bough will be one of those great mysteries. In any case, he eventually climbed back down and ate the bread left out for the birds. (Yep, birds, cuz dh knows better than to feed the wildlife). Having Spike hang around has really been a good experience for all of us - we are all keenly interested in his well being and antics, and are learning things about a fellow creature that we would otherwise have no reason to even notice.

In many ways, this is what photography has done for me: Although I have always been a naturalist and paid attention to the world around me, photography has drawn me deeper into my surroundings, given me a reason to slow down and look, to focus on both the sweeping broad scene and the minute details within it. I am feeling the need for a photography fix. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the right inspiration.

Soccer Season Gears Up

How long has it been since provincials and tryouts? Two long weeks, I think. But as I sit down to update the calendar I realize it won't be very long at all before we are running all over the city from soccer event to soccer event. The off season, unfortunately, coincides with early spring (or fall), when the photo ops are few and far between and it is still too cold to garden in any significant way.

Our yard will need a lot of work this year. The new septic went in last September and it snowed so soon after that that we had no hope of doing any clean up or landscaping work. So, we have a thick layer of leaves on top of mud. And there is still lots of snow to go. I just hope that we can manage to get the landscaping done well, around all of the soccer things this summer. I am envisioning designing a garden that will lend itself to family and individual portraiture. I hope to include benches, pathways, and flower beds as backdrops, and if I do it right these will also be attractive to birds and butterflies!

What's a Sunday about, after all...

Today was a real 'do nothin' day. I spent some time in the early morning searching the yard for a LPS 3 entry. Maybe, maybe not. Will see what else I come up with over the week. I've put the possible shots here.
Did some general housekeeping, and some more fussing over my smugmug site. It is really coming along, but with each step forward I come up with a new thing to try. It may always be a work in progress. But, because of the wonderful help from the customizing forum on DGrin, I am really making progress with it.
Had ma & pa and nephew over for dinner....mmmmmm, ham. I love ham. DH hates ham. I feel the same way about turkey, so traditional holiday meals are either a trade off or whatever 'mom' makes!
Spike made an appearance. Katie, Kelso and I were out back. Kelso stopped at the spruce to check something out, and sure enough it was Spike, way underneath up against the trunk. He came out after we put the dog in the house. Got a few more shots of him. This evening he came out into the yard, and found apple pieces waiting for him. Ma and Pa were able to get a good look at him. I don't really believe the descriptions that say porcupines have a poor sense of smell. He seems really adept at sniffing out fruit.
Work tomorrow, and hopefully some t & I shots for a couple of basketball teams tomorrow evening.

Last Photographer Standing

DGrin
is hosting a great photography contest that they are calling 'Last Photographer Standing'. The contest runs a year, with 50 two week long qualifying rounds. Each qualifying round has a pair of diverging themes to meet (pick one). Stakes are pretty big: over $25K USD in prizes. Details found here.
I have entered each of the first two rounds. I am also keeping a gallery of my trials and successes here. My entry in round one was chosen as a qualifier for the judging round.
So I find myself thinking about how to interpret the theme and get the shot all the time....This rounds themes are 'Irregular' or 'Picturesque". Well, if you've ever been to Edmonton in the early spring, you no picturesque isn't happening without a road trip.
I'm not sure I'll get a shot this time, but you can be sure I'll keep looking for the right one until the very last minute.