My niece's first game of 2009

Well I am very excited to be shooting soccer again. Hard to believe it has been a whole year already. Well my son unfortunately did not want to play this year however my niece decided to play and of course I agreed to shoot her games as photographing sports I have found is becoming very addictive.

This is one of my favorites from the game although it is the back of my niece. Her oponents facial expression displaying her determination is priceless.

And this is also a favorite of mine alot of action in this shot and the intensity on the faces says it all.

And had to get in a sportrait as well

I have been fortunate enough to get a few of her face but she plays defense and her back was to me alot more than not. ( if I only had that 300mm or 400mm with an extender for when she is on the other end of the field) OH Well all in good time

Thanks for looking

Chad

Thousand Islands Enviromental Center

Well I met up with three other photographers at Thousand Islands Enviromental Center. I really enjoyed spending time with them and seeing just how much work a portrait photographer has to do. Well I did not take part in trying to get a handle on portrait photography although this seemed to be a place that offered great scenes for it. I instead stuck with my comfort zone and photographed wildlife.

Here I took a shot of some of the terrain Mike and myself had endured to get much closer to the wildlife than the board walk would allow.

I must say out of the entire day this is my most favorite I just love how the sun is shining in and highlighting the tree and the outline of this doe.

And here is another doe she was accompanied by her two fawn which you will see in the other three photos after this one.

I honestly can say I have never been this close to deer before it was unbelievable how they just accepted the fact that we were there and just went about there buisiness as if we were not even there.

Thanks for looking

Chad

Softball

This week I had the pleasure of photographing my first softball game. I made a few mistakes but over all I am very happy with the way my pictures tuned out. In the first three images only the first one was taken during the game. The other two were taken in between innings while they were warming up.

And here is where my mistakes took place. One of the most important things in sports photography is capturing the faces showing the intensity of the athelete. And as you can see I did not do this in these last two shots. She was playing first base when playing the field so I positioned myself just passed the dugout on the third base side. Now I read MANY times that for shooting batters if they are right handed you should be in the same area as I was for shooting her in the field only I should have been on the first base side of the field. Now I will definately remember this for the next time.

Thanks for looking

Chad

Another Attempt Out Of My Element

Well This past weekend I tried another part of photography that is not my normal everyday stuff. I tried a little portrait style work that I once did in the begining of my interest in photography but then didn't really like it or the results so much. But here I go again trying it once more though I would not want to do this all the time. These are my two nieces and I am pretty happy with the way they turned out. The first image obviously is posed. But in the second shot it is completely candid she was looking the other way and I just called out her name and when she swung around I took the shot that is my all time favorite.

Motion Blur

This week another photographer challenged everyone on the photo forum I am a member of to try something new. To read up on a new part of photography that we have never tried b-4. I recently read in the June issue of Pop Photo about creating motion blur with your camera. These images are all straight out of camera (SOOC) other than resizing for the web and the frame and signature on them. This has proven to be alot of fun and I am definately going to contiue experimenting with this.

Birds Galore

Today I again spent several hours out in the WLR I know big surprize. I am begining to wonder if maybe I should have my mail sent out there instead as it feels I am there much more than I am home. My main goal for today was to capture a shot of a new bird I have stumbled across in the marsh the other day when I did not have my camera along rule #1 always have your camera.Luckily this was not a lesson learned and I was able to spot one out again it is named the Sora (pictured below). My other challenge was to get as close as possible to the Pelican's which is a challenge in itself but I was able to get a half way decent shot with significant cropping to the image so getting closer still poses as a challeng to me.

1. Sora

2. This is either the Common Tern or the Forster's Tern not sure

3. American White Pelican

4. Yellow Goldfinch

5,6,and 7. Tree Swallow






8. Killdeer




Thanks for looking hope you enjoyed

Chad

Out Of My Rut

Ever since my prairie chicken trip I have found myself in a rut. I took a large number of photos none of which I was even slightly happy with. Today I set out to get back into the swing of things so I loaded up my camera, two oldest children along with my two nieces and set out once again to the Horicon Marsh. As you can see I ended up with a few shots that I am pretty pleased with.

Here I photographed two Tern's one that is sitting on top of a muskrat den. I am unsure if this is a nesting spot or not I do know that the Canada geese nest on the tops of these dens so I will have to keep watching to see if the Tern does as well.
The other was flying around doing amazing dives into the water to retrieve tiny fish to eat I did photograph this but it was a bit out of focus so I did not include it in this series.

And as mentioned the Canada goose. Here is a pair that has had there goslins and boy are they cute but be warned don't get to close cause the parents are very protective of there young and they grab hold and twist I have not experienced this myself but have seen it happen.

And last but not least the barn swallow. This one was hanging around the floating bridge sitting on the rope railing so I took a shot. I was trying to get a shot of a tree swallow but this was just fine perhaps this weekend I will get to photograph one.

Thanks for looking hope you enjoyed

Chad

Prairie chickens

Today my wife and I joined up with friends of ours to watch the booming of prairie chickens. This species is threatened in Wisconsin. And it is in the efforts of the DNR to increase the population and bring back this once abundent bird. My good friend works for the DNR and provided access to one of the VIP blinds that the DNR has placed on the booming grounds of the Buena Vista Reserve. I can not begin to describe how amazing this opportunity was and that I hope I have this chance again in the near future. In these first group of photos depicts how the males defend there territories and if they cross into others boundries things can get quite physical.

What this photo shows is the booming call the males make they puff out their cheeks and make a very interesting sound.

Now in these next two photos you will see we had a surprise visitor hanging around trying to make a meal out of the males but was unsuccessful and flew off.

The shots didn't turn out to well but I felt the need to share. I believe this to be an owl after viewing the photo once I uploaded it to the pc.

And now things get very interesting as a hen (female) moves in and stood where three males territories met What a tease.

Thanks for looking hope you enjoyed

Chad