Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Golfer



Mens golf only plays at home once this semester, so I knew I had to get some good shots. I really enjoyed the photo that made the front page of sports on the 17th, but here is another shot I thought stood out. Because I don't feel like bothering anybody for golf carts I ride my bike around the golf course on the cart path, it works just as well and is actually less disturbing (noise wise) compared to the carts. I would follow a player for a few holes and try and get a variety of shots and then move on. What's nice about golf is it's pretty easy to figure out where the action is going to happen so I am able to set up for nice compositions. I feel this photos relays a sense of anticipation from the golfer as he waits to see where his ball finally comes to a stop and I feel the blurred ground on the bottom of the frame helps add interest and direct your attention to the ball approaching the pin.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Observatory


For this assignment it was to cover the open house at the observatory. The Star Gazing club sponsors these evenings where anybody can show up and look through the telescope, I had been to these before and really enjoyed it. The thing was now I had a camera and I had to get pictures, but let's just say you get the best star gazing when it's really dark outside but that's not quite ideal for the camera. What I ended up doing for this was waiting until the end of the evening when everybody was about to head out and asked them to stick around for a few minutes so I could get pictures. I knew I was going to have use a flash and I knew it would blind everybody to stars for a few minutes. I set the camera for a long exposure so it would catch all the cool red light that light up the observatory (red light does not kill you night vision) but I was also able to light up one of the guys with a rear curtain sync. That means on a 2 or 3 second exposure, the flash pops right at the last millisecond before the shutter closes. The shot ended up turning out pretty well even though the moon looks a bit like the sun.