Rick’s Rants and Raves

Ever since Nathan saw his first Lego stop motion video on Youtube, he’s been determined to make his own. He’s made several attempts but he quickly realizes while reviewing the pics on the back of the camera that he’s not going to be happy with the result.

Last week, he finally had a set of photos that he was happy with and was ready to compile them into a video. I didn’t help him at all with the photography–he did it all by himself. I help with adding the effects, the video composition, sound and final publishing. But he learned much of that along the way and will likely be able to do most of that work on his own the next time around.

He’s had a bit of a violent streak in his Lego play recently…

I’ve continued to shoot using my Jive Thirty Five at Nathan’s Street Hockey Games.

ISO 400, f/2, 1/125

The best part about this game was the comeuppance three of the members of the other team received. These guys are brothers that had played on my kids’ teams in the past, but this year they’ve decided to participate at a different YMCA. When we entered the gym 20 minutes prior to the game, they started talking smack non-stop about a) how our team was going down, b) how they made the team last year when they were on it, and c) how we were just going to be crushed.

I love the celebration in the background of the second shot

At the end of the first period, they were losing 4-0. Mid-way through the second period (6-0), I walked by one of them who was still keeping up the bravado claiming that we were “going down” just as soon as he could get back on the court. To which I added “and scoring 7 goals.” The final, by my tally, (the Y doesn’t officially keep score, but all the parents and players try to) was 8-1. Boy was their celebration long and boisterous when they scored that one point. For the rest of their team, I was happy for them. For the sake of the three brothers, I really hoped for a shutout. No, not terribly sportsman like of me, but I think their egos needed a bit of a smack-down. That smack-down came when the final point of the game was scored by our team directly from the face off at center court–the oldest of the brothers was the goalie and had no idea it had gone through. I was too busy talking with the other spectator-parents to notice the mood of the three brothers at the end of the game.

Photographically, the biggest challenge is that with the open aperture, the depth of field is so narrow that it looks like most of the pictures are blurry. They aren’t–its just that the net (or the glove, or the spot on the floor 3 feet to the left of the player) are sharp, but the DOF is so narrow that everything else goes bokeh.

So, maybe next game I’ll try to compromise and shoot at ISO 800 and f/4. That’s still better than I could have gotten with my kit lens at 35mm (f/5.3) but it should render more of the photo in focus. And of course shooting kids moving at broken-neck speed makes keeping the focus point on a face challenging. Fortunately we’ve entered the digital “spray and pray” era, and I can shoot 100+ shots only to post nine.

I was recently informed by my wife that I failed in my attempt at humor in the beginning of the Necessity Gig post. I meant the introductory paragraph tongue-in-cheek. I fully understand that portrait photography is a highly developed skill, and is not easy by any means. I was attempting to be playful by pointing out that adding in darkness, mirrors and pool cues makes the task a bit more challenging. If you, kind reader, thought I was being arrogant, I apologize–I’m clearly better at photography than humor.

OK, now that was arrogant! Ha! Now I’ll have to write a post titled “Humility Fail”.

This weekend, we had an opportunity to go with Emily’s God Parents to see the Columbus Symphony perform the score to the Wizard of Oz, while the movie played overhead on a big screen. Nathan decided that he wanted to wear his non-clip-on tie (for the second time). Anne pointed out that if I wore a tie, and showed him how to tie it, that this would be a great photo opportunity. I would hate to let my wife down, so I grabbed a tie and handed her the camera.

Taken by Anne

We had a wonderful dinner, then headed for the theater. Of course, there is the obligatory sign above the entrances “No Cameras Allowed.” I grinned at the anachronism. I mean really, how many iPhones were in the audience? They’ve got amazing cameras built in. I couldn’t resist trying to snap a few photos with my own phone.

Yeah, it sucks. But hey, I took a picture where cameras weren’t allowed! Na ner na ner naa ner. The performance was great, the kids really enjoyed it and so did the rest of the audience. But I was a little irritated at the people who were dashing out as the movie was just ending and the applause was just beginning–the house lights weren’t even on yet. These folks were evidently so anxious to beat the crowd out that they couldn’t even show just a wee bit of appreciation for the performers? Would they leave a dinner party without thanking their hosts just to get home a couple of minutes earlier? Yes, we waited in the parking garage for a few minutes as the crowd thinned, but that was quality time that we could talk about and enjoy our memories of the show.

Today we had a big family birthday party where we celebrated our kids’, Anne’s dad’s, and Laura’s birthdays. And we finally had an opportunity to do some ice skating on their back-yard rink.

One of the many fun parts of the evening was when Laura opened a birthday card with an audio chip embedded in it. The tune was “Do your ears hang low” but the word “ears” was replaced with “boobs”.

Nathan was the only child sitting close enough to understand the words, and he said, just a little quietly after it was over, “That was awkward.” The adults started busting up laughing, again.

Kathy and Van had each received a set of Wizard of Oz Pez dispensers for Christmas (we saw them at World Market and contemplated buying them as gifts), so they decided to give the kids which ever dispenser they wanted. I, of course, wanted to photograph them.

This was one of those wonderful coincidences after having just seen the movie the night before.

The previous two pictures are examples of why I dearly love my new 35mm f/1.8 lens. More on that in another post.

I also took a picture of Kathy’s Welcome sign.

I took this picture because the Digital Photography School assignment this week is “Centered Composition”. I knew when I saw the assignment that I wanted to take a picture of an object framed by a nine-light window so that the picture would be about the rule of thirds while breaking it. Fortunately, Kathy had this lovely welcome sign hanging from her door.