Soccer Action by Sere

Skateboarding you all had to do skateboarding haha. I live in the middle of nowhere, we do football we don't do skateboarding. The nearest skate park is like an hour away from me. Skateboarding does make me think of action though. Action made me think of sports. I don't do a lot with sports, don't watch and don't really play. My son on the other hand is playing soccer so I thought I would just go and take a few little league soccer shots. No big deal right? I must laugh at myself because everytime I think something is easy, it so is not.

I took, I don't know 100+ shots at this little league game, and all I got was a whole lotta nothin'. What it taught me was that sports photography is a skill that you need LOTS of practice at to be any good and I have not had LOTS of practice. This picture is the photographers fault, not the kids. The kids were great; adorable, moving. I caught all sorts of hilarious poses and faces, but not so much action. So here is the best of the worst, with the understanding that I, Sere, as the photographer, has not had a lot of practice at this style of photography but aim to keep on practicing to get better.

Nikon D2
ISO 800
Aperture F/18
Shutter Speed 1/100 sec.
Lens 18-200mm at 86mm
natural lighting

On a better note I did get a really neat shot of this cool looking spider hanging outside of my house. As long as he stays outside I'm cool with him being around, he gets inside my house and he's a dead spider. Nature photography- okay, Sports photography - not so good.

Friday Faces - Who did Brandi find?

I am a girl. I have a girl. We play princess and paint our nails. We don't play skateboard. I don't own a skateboard, though my brothers and I had one growing up until we left it out (for the 1,000th time) and it got run over. Bye, bye skateboard.
What I'm trying to say here is following Scott's photo posed a few dilemmas.

It's Friday Faces so I needed skaters and they had to have cute faces. I totally lucked out when I went to the local skate park this afternoon.
I met two of the cutest boys in town.
Everyone meet Nick and Nate.


Nikon d40
f10
ISO 200
1/1000 sec

I had the hardest time trying to pick from all the photos I took of these photogenic boys. In the end I went with a photo of the two of them together. It's certainly not the best photo of the bunch but I couldn't possibly play favorites. I adored them both so much.
Both boys were such troopers. They showed me all their tricks and even made up a few on the spot for me all while remembering to look at the camera. Such a delight.

Nick and Nate,
Thank you for being such delightful, hysterical young men. It was a pleasure meeting you both. Keep up the hard work boys and you'll both be doing crazy mad flips and tricks in no time. I'll see you out on the half pipe soon.
Props to you both,
Brandi

Sk8 or Die!!!

Canon 30D
Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
Shutter Speed 1.6 Seconds
Aperture f/3.5
ISO 100
Shutter Priority
Natural Light

Skaters of the 80's unite! I had a Hosoi Hammerhead and I loved it! I knew when I saw Jay'me's post I had to do this. Her boots reminded me of specialty shoes for other activities and I happen to have an old pair of skate shoes. I'll confess now that I've seen a shot very similar (only better) and I'm just trying to replicate with my own style.

First, let me just say you kids that skate now are so lucky! Do you have any idea how heavy my board was? I'd say pushing 37 pounds, give or take. But this board had to be around 8 ounces. I had to use my lightest lens just to keep it from tipping over! It was great fun and, as per the usual, I got some fantastic looks. It won't be long and I'll be known as the "Lake in the Hills guy that walks around muttering to himself."

This time, I had Ethan (my 4 year-old son) to, ahem, help. Wow that changes things! I wasn't really able to do what I set out to do. All the same, E helped me by pushing the skateboard and previewing the images. The result is I completely ran out of light in far too short of time. But I like this shot because it really conveys the motion and texture of riding. When you're on a skateboard, you feel all sorts of things in your feet. And the one thing it's not is smooth - at least on most street surfaces. So the fact it's a bit blurry doesn't bother me at all. In fact I think it adds something to the feel.

I'm also really pleased with the bit of flare and reflection from the setting sun. Though it was done intentionally, it came off better than I'd hoped. Here's to happy accidents.

I'm all out of words (sung to I'm all out of Love by Air Supply - feeling a little punchy!). Don't forget to make your guesses on Wednesday's post (well, it's actually a really early Thursday post) and thanks to Kristen for her beautiful photo of the flags. Stay rad!

Scott

Wordless Wednesday with Jay'me

Wordless Wednesday Rules
The poster must only post 1 photo and settings. No additional verbiage (other than rules) is allowed.

Commenters (that's you) must comment and guess how the photo associates with the previous (Tuesday) photo. The winning guess gets to be the guest photographer for Sunday.

Kristen was our big winner last week. Congratulations again Kristen!

No previous photography experience required. In fact, wanna-be's like us, are encouraged. The only criteria, you must be able to take a photo (any camera will do), email said photo, allow 3C1D to publish said photo and follow the rules -->
1 guess only per person. All rules strictly enforced with a paddle.

Ready Set GO!!!!!!



Cannon EOS
f5.6 @18mm
1/800sec
ISO 800
manual with natural lighting

*Post assist from Brandi while Jay'me is getting settled in on her vacay! She'll be watching the guesses to see who's "right"*

An All-American Girl by Sere

In keeping with our All-American theme this week....

Nikon D2X
ISO 400
Aperture F10
Shutter 1/20 sec.
Lens 14-24mm at 22mm
natural lighting, no flash
I used a skylight filter to give the picture a little extra warmth

When I thought about America this past week, beyond the flag and heroism of our soldiers I thought about what they were fighting for. This picture, to me, is part of what our soldiers fight for, what firefighters and policemen as well want to protect. An adorable girl, I'll call her M, cooking marshmallows on a homemade literal stick to make S'Mores around a campfire on a beautiful evening.

I decided to do some quick research on the history of S'Mores. S'Mores are about as American as apple pie. They even have their own unrecognized holiday, August 10. Nobody knows for sure when they came about, but it was roughly around the 20th century, probably created by some bored camper. The first known recipe was in a Girl Scout handbook, named because the girls kept asking for "some more" and it eventually became shortened to s'more. I think we all can appreciate their love for this ooey, gooey treat.

An American Classic - by Brandi

Nothing says America like...



Nikon D40
1/10 sec
f4.0 @ 38mm
ISO 400
natural light

When I saw Kristen's (How awesome is it to have a different name?) photo I felt very American. There are a few things that instantly come to my mind when I think of things that symbolize America. Baseball, Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, aviation, apple pie (which I baked and is currently cooling) and Harley Davidson.
This particular type of Harley emblem has a ceramic center (the star part). The ceramic emblem has been attached to the fuel tanks of select Harley's since the 1950's. Talk about iconic.

Photographing a chrome emblem such a this poses all sorts of challenges. Getting a photo without getting all the colors of the surroundings is the hardest of those. To minimize this I used the white side of the reflector to block the space behind me. I also decided that while this emblem has a silver background I needed to convert the entire photo to black and white in Photoshop during post processing.
The black and white conversion allowed me to blend out some of the "shadows" with ease.

This photo may not be red, white and blue but like Kristen's it makes me feel very American.

Welcome Kristen!

Brandi here!
I'm pleased to introduce you all to our FIRST guest photographer, Kristen Pope. Kristen won our inaugural Wordless Wednesday post. Her correct guess is in the comments section. Job well, done Kristen!

We're honored to have Kristen join us. She's an amazing photographer already, and she's only just begun. I'll let Kristen share the rest of her story in her own words.

Kristen, by Kristen
I’m a 24-year-old newlywed with a passion for anything artistic. I specialize in graphic design, but have found a new love of photography in the past year or so. My husband and I are both full time Realtors and we have a 10 month old lab/hound mix. I love photography because it seems to have an extra emotion that a lot of the other art fields don’t have. It is also a great way to capture different things that not everyone see’s in the world.

The Photo-

Canon EOS REBEL T1i
18mm
1/500 Shutter Speed
F14
ISO 400

The photo I choose is one that I took recently on a trip to Baltimore. When I was asked to provide a recent shot, this one immediately came to mind because for me, it offers that same sense of heroism that Scott’s firetruck photo emitted. In remembrance of this special day in history, seeing these flags really stood out to me that we are still a strong country and we are still proud and still brave. We may have been temporarily blindsided by the 9/11 attacks (and it forever stands on it’s own in our past), but we are still standing.

***************

Beautifully said, Kristen. Thanks for joining us.

You all can see more of Kristen's work here and here. Please go check her out and offer her the same support you all have offered us.

Tomorrow, will be my (Brandi, in case you got confused, like I did) day to post a photo. Sere's joining us on Tuesday and then Jay'me will have another Wordless Wednesday post for us.
It's shaping up to be a fabulous week!