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