I knew Saturday would be a busy day. I had woken up extra early to get a jump on it. During the Winter my days often begin and end in gloomy darkness. Sometimes I pass a wonderful spot and I have a few minutes to park, soak in the beauty of our world, brave the frigid air, and snap a few pictures. Saturday morning was like that. The sunrise breathed new life into my tired eyes, so I thought I should share it.
Nikon D800 Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 46mm f/8 ISO 800 1/250 sec
My wife and I have just returned from a long weekend in Jamaica. It wasn’t bright and sunny when we were there,which to some would be horrible, but as a photographer it created breathtaking skies. There were multiple atmospheric movements of clouds across the view of the ocean that could change minute by minute. Capturing the drapes of color that would float around the Sun was a bit challenging, but I enjoyed the chase.
Nikon D800 Nikkor 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 55mm f/5.6 ISO 100 1/250sec
Continuing in the basketball themed posts (mostly because it’s winter and it’s the majority of pictures I’m taking right now) I thought I would take a moment to share one more vantage point from a basketball game. I’ve had basketball photography explained to me as being all about the angles. If you think about it logically, action sports photography usually has two specific elements in a picture, action and emotion. To simplify this idea, usually that means a face and a ball need to be in the picture for most sports. Having limited access to positioning in most venues can make getting in positions to photograph an athlete's face while he or she is performing their sport rather difficult. One place in basketball is while a player is attempting to dunk. The ball in an outstretched arm and a frontal view of the athlete's face are visible if you look through the backboard. Obviously this takes some preparation and there’s a limited amount of risk to equipment, but when it works out, the picture can tell a unique story. Here’s a few pictures of the rigging I used to hang a Nikon D7000 behind the backboard last night. The lens is a Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 so mounted on the camera it was set as wide as it could go. With the cropping factor that equates to about 24mm.
I got a few good ones, but here’s my favorite.
In some places it becomes easy to see proof of the evolving Earth we live on. Fifteen miles outside of Las Vegas, Nevada is a prime example. More than a million people each year visit the site. Rock climbing and biking are very popular, and it’s a nice change from the urban jungle close by. Granite rock has been pushed up from the depths of the Earth via tectonic plate movement to form what is called the Keystone Thrust. Hundreds of millions of years ago the Red Rocks were at the bottom of an ocean but over the passing eons massive planetary forces eradicated the sea and replaced it with the escarpment we see today.
Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area
Canon HF20
Basketball, from a photographer’s standpoint, has some interesting challenges, not the least of which is positioning. Being along the base line gives opportunities for some great shots as guards and forwards charge down court, but pictures of action at the basket are difficult. For one thing the hoop is ten feet from the floor and even if I could jump that high there’s lots of things in the way, the backboard and the support system being the major things. One way to try and get around this conundrum is to point a remote camera at the basket at some angle that could possibly catch the ball, and a face or two, doing something awesome at the specific place we all think of when we think of basketball. So my idea last night was to point a camera, with a long zoom lens, towards the side of the basket, at the same height as the basket. (This isn’t new, but it’s the first time I’ve attempted it.) I learned a lot from the escapade and I did manage to get a few keepers from it. This one is my favorite.
Nikon D7000 Sigma 300mm f/2.8 @ 300mm f/3.2 ISO 4000 1/1000 sec.
