Great Valley Vs. Glen Mills Varsity Basketball

Last evening at the Great Valley High School the boys varsity basketball team had a difficult task on their hands. The Batting Bulls from Glen Mills brought their “a game” and gave the Patriots a workout. After pulling out an early lead the Patriots were closed out of the center lane and forced to work from the outside, while the Bulls fought hard to keep their newly acquired lead well into the fourth quarter. The Great Valley boys pulled out a small lead in the final minutes by keeping their cool under pressure and performing like a precision machine to come from behind for the win.

Cool under pressure

#TravelTuesday El Capitan

On the North side of Yosemite Valley stands the intimidating El Capitan.  Named in 1851 by a division of the California State Militia, the Mariposa Battalion is a loose translation from the Native American name which meant something like “chief”, or “rock chief”.  This granite behemoth was carved from glaciers millions of years ago and stands today as a taunt to many avid climbers.  The route called “The Nose”was first climbed in 1958 and took 47 days.  The record today stands at 2 hours 23 minutes and 46 seconds.  El Capitan will stand for eons keeping watch over Yosemite Valley.

El Capitan

Great Valley High School vs. Octorara High School Varsity Boys Basketball

Friday night I had a great time shooting high school basketball. It was a blast.  These kids were passionate and heated in the fight for victory.  Great Valley dominated most of the game with the final score 63-28.  Great Valley charged to the lead early in the game and never looked back.  I am gaining experience photographing sporting events and will be doing more work with Great Valley in the months to come.

Great Valley Varsity Basketball vs Octorara

Nikon D4 Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm f/2.8 ISO 6400 1/800 sec

Time passes us by

I think one of the reasons I got into photography was that I have a very poor memory.  I know there were places I saw and things i experienced as a child but I have almost no memory of them. For instance when I was seventeen I was playing with the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra and we toured South America.  I have almost no memory of this place.  I have a fuzzy image of lots and lots of power lines in Buenos Aires, I remember a huge lake I could see from the hotel room in Montevideo, Uruguay, and just bright white blinding sand on the beach in Rio.  I know I was there, and if I saw it again I would remember it.  My family went to Hawaii back in 2007. I wasn’t into photography then, but even when I look at the snapshots, memories come flooding back into my brain.  Obviously the memories are there, but they are filed away in some recess of my mind.  

The image below stimulates all the senses for me.  It wasn’t that long ago that I had taken it but I forgot about the picture for a few weeks.  I was going through my backup hard drive when I saw it.  I remember the fear I had getting to the location not knowing if I was trespassing. (Turns out I was not)  I could feel the humid air of the oncoming thunderstorm, and could smell the stagnant water of the pond.  My boots were gathering mud standing beside the reeds, and mosquitoes kept attacking my ears.  The picture means so much more to me because of the emotions and experience I had creating the moment. For me, that moment in time reasserts itself when I see the picture.  


Use your camera, if you don’t have one, talk to Santa.  Memory is fleeting. Capturing memories you can relive over and over lasts a lifetime.

Nikon D800 Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 44mm f/8 ISO 100 7 image HDR

HDR Photography

High Dynamic Range photography is a technique I use often in the processing of my photographs.  It is highly controversial right now and examples of HDR processing can be seen all over the internet. Some photographers make fabulous use of  this technique while others take their photos to a level beyond surreal.

Why I use it:

Photographers measure the amount of light in “stops”.  The human eye can see variations of brightness measuring about twenty stops. The best cameras on the market today can capture five to seven stops of light. (varying degrees of brightness)  So in order to gather as much light as needed to fully illuminate a photograph the photographer could take the same picture multiple times and blend them together.  

Example:

In the picture below the sky is the brightest object in the photograph.  In one of the pictures I took the sky looked rich and vibrant with color, but the topiary and the flowers in front of the gate were pitch black.  At the other end of the sequence the flowers and statue had rich color, contrast and depth, but the sky was pure white.  Blending the different pictures together produces the image below.  Which is much closer to how I saw it, then any one picture could have reproduced.

HDR Photography

Nikon D800 Nikkor 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 32mm f/18 ISO 100 7 image HDR