Haven’t shot any soccer this weekend due to recovery, but I’m still waiting to see more participation from the parents as far as buying pictures.   Can’t work for free, you know!

My brother and his wife her in town over the weekend so I got to hang out with them.  Surprisingly, even though the camera was with me, I just hung out without taking any shots.  Of course, he ribs me about being a camera/photo geek so I wanted to avoid that too haha.

Over the weekend, Renee wanted me to come hang out and get some good pictures for a get-together that she was having.   Turned out to be a pretty good time.  Oh! And never have too much to drink when a photographer is around.

Also, on Monday, when I was about to mow the lawn, I saw my neighbor Ed out with his camera trying to take a picture of something.  Turns out that he had spotted a praying mantis in his garden.  I hadn’t had the chance to photograph any yet, so I was definitely more interested in doing that rather than mowing the lawn.  While there, I got some interesting shots of other insects around as well.

Well, it’s time to start cleaning up around the house!  Peace!

Well, anyway, there’s a few things that I’ve learned or “relearned” about shooting youth sports.  Especially soccer, since you will end up taking a LOT more shots than other youth sports due to the constant action.  For those that don’t understand or dabble too much in photography, I’m sorry if this seems a bit “geeked” out for you, but I figured this would be good info.  So here we go.

• Learn to know your camera’s settings for dealing with action shots.  Continuous focus, shutter and aperture priority mode.  Also make sure that you are in multiple shot mode.  This is a MUST for sports. Even if you aren’t a machine gunner, you can use it in those situations that call for it and pick out the best of the burst series.
• If you have a light meter, USE IT!!  I cannot stress this enough.  The reason being is that if you get the exposure reading at the beginning of your shooting and double check it at set points during the game (sun changing position, etc..), this will save you a LOT of time in post processing.  Why not rely on your camera’s meter?  Well, you have situations where you have lighter color jerseys, bright balls, different complexions, sky in the background, tree’s in the background, etc…  All situations which will get different camera exposure readings, which aren’t always right.  Break out the light meter, get an incident reading, and lock it in.   And write down your settings for frequently used apertures and shutter speeds so you can remember them in case they accidently get changed.  And be sure to “chimp” a lot.
• White balance.   If you have a white balance card, bring it out as well for the exact same reasons that I mentioned bringing the light meter.  With the different colors, angles, etc… this will save you from MANY corrections in post processing when the camera guessed it wrong.
• Learn to isolate players -  What I mean by this is when I’m shooting, I tend to isolate players with a combination of specific focal point use and aperture.  Many photographers will shoot a smaller aperture for a larger depth of field.  They do this for two reasons.  First, with the smaller depth of field, you have a larger depth of field and more of a chance of getting more players in focus.  Secondly, they like to get a whole bunch of kids in focus in one picture so that one shot is appealing to multiple parents.   I actually hate doing this!  I will do it every now and then, but I prefer to isolate players as much as I can with a wide aperture to separate from other players in the picture (much more pleasing photo) and by using specific focal points.
• Keep the ball in the shot.  This is pretty simple in concept, but can be much harder to actually practice.  sometimes to keep the ball in the frame, you have to use the left most focal points if your player is kicking the ball to your right or the rightmost focal points for vice versa.  And speaking of focal points…
• Learn to use one focal point at at time.   Yea, you can use the “auto” focal point feature on your camera, but it will often use the subject closest to the camera as the point of focus.  The person closest to you isn’t always what you want and can therefore ruin a few shots.  By using specific focal points, you have more control over pinpointing the action and your subjects.
• Bring PLENTY of memory – For soccer, shooting raw with my 40D camera, I can easily use up an 8 gig card.    Pretty much to the point that I’m strongly considering moving over to jpeg for sports.  Especially if I’m being careful about exposure and white balance.  In which using a raw format will give you more flexibility.  If you’re shooting a full game in raw, I would suggest getting a 16 gig card if you can.  If you’re shooting jpeg, then 8 gigs will be plenty.
• Bring a portfolio of some of your shots.  While you’re shooting (and if you’re good) the parents will marvel at your shots and more strongly considering buying from you rather than getting shots from Bob who is a parent at the game with his basic SLR camera with kit lens thinking he can shoot just as good as the pro.
• Use good glass – For the reason stated above, you have to really be able to separate yourself from the shutterbug parent crowd.  If you want to provide a quality better than what they can do on their nice camera from Best Buy, you’re going to have to bring your guns.  Ideal setup would be a 70-200 lens on one body as your main shooter and a 400 mm lens on another body for shots all the way across the field.  So be prepared to spend the money.  This is why pro’s aren’t cheap.  They got to make up the costs of the equipment it took for them to shoot at such a good quality.
• Mingle with parents. – nuff said
• Mingle with coaches and referee’s.  – I always hook up with coaches and referee’s.   This insures that I can get access to various parts of the field without getting grief for being outside of the area reserved for parents.
• While I’m on that, be sure to dress like a photographer if you want access to other areas of the field.   When I venture out downfield outside if the parent’s seating area in sports, I get a LOT less grief than others due to the fact that alongside my big lenses, I wear jeans, boots, and my photographer’s jacket.  That way, there’s no doubt that I’m simply just a parent who doesn’t know his/her bounds.
• Speaking of clothing, ALWAYS wear pants and wear waterproof boots.  It will become obvious to you as you shoot in various weather and field conditions.  And keep your memory cards with you so that you don’t have to keep running back to your bag. Heck, keep as much as you can on your person. Even though I live in Overland Park, don’t assume  you won’t get stuff stolen.

Welp, that’s it for right now.  Gotta get back to work.  Here are some sample photos

The House

Well, first and foremost, I ended up buying a house.   Nice little 3 bedroom in a quiet neighborhood, which is JUST what I’ve needed lately.  I would post pictures, but there are certain people who follow my blog that I really don’t want to take the chance in them knowing where I live, for I’ve had enough drama with them, but more on that later.  It’s pretty nice that I now have a nice front and back yard with PLENTY of space, which means more to mow.  But I’m finally able to utilize more space and really enjoy the peace and quiet.

So, what lead up to me buying a house?  Here are the reasons

1. Got sick and tired of people fighting outside in the parking lot of my apartment complex.  Either that or yelling, or loud music.
2. A crazy neighbor who thinks that somehow I’ve scraped his car with mine since both of our cars ended up with scratches in the same area.  Thing is that the paint on both cars is white, his was scratched deeply into the metal and mine was lightly scratched on plastic.  Not to mention the scratches didn’t line up and the angle was impossible unless my side view mirror wasn’t there.  So either someone scratched both of our cars, or he was trying to pull a fast one.  Either way, take it to the insurance company Jack.
3. Flooding toilets from upstairs pouring into my bathroom and hallway
4. Fat, heavy footed people above me on treadmills
5. People’s dog crap not being picked up
6. No longer able to keep my BBQ grill  (yea, this one was the straw that broke the camel’s back)
7. I had a good deal and it was a good time to buy

So yea, I’m pretty happy with the house and I’m finding out very quickly that home improvement, repairs, tweaks, etc.. will keep me busy and that home warranty companies are scam artists.  I also found out that I’m pretty decent at cutting pipe and replacing with pvc when I’m pretty pissed off.

But wow!! I’m getting great peace and quiet and I have great neighbors.

Photography

I’ve started to focus quite a bit more on photography lately since I’ve been meaning to expand on my income now that I don’t have as much toy money due to extra home expenses.  The finished portion of my basement has now been converted to a basic photography studio, but I definitely have some work ahead of me in getting it to the point where I’m pretty happy with it.   It’s got lower ceilings than before, but it’s teaching me to shoot in different ways in order to compensate so it’s cool.  Oh, and did I mention my neighbor looks for models to promote and coaches soccer?  Cha Ching!  I’ve already done a modeling shoot for him and he and his model are very pleased with the results.  Hopefully, there will be more to come.  Also, expect more zany and interesting photos now that I have more space to work with.  Not to mention plenty of creatures in my backyard to shoot.  Here’s a shot of the studio.  And a few other shots of some interesting things I’ve found crawling around and other zany stuff.

Drama

Wow, I don’t even know where to start or how much to say on this one since the smoke hasn’t cleared yet.  But basically, I’ve found out that when you befriend the opposite sex, sometimes they really hide who they are on the inside. We’ll refer to this person as “A”.  And sometimes, they can be more emotionally involved with you than you think, and well, when another person comes along and you suddenly find yourself in a very good friendship with a new friend who we’ll refer to as “B”, then A can tend to get jealous, spread rumors, and cause a 3 police car ruckus and plenty of fallout and angry feelings.  So yea, women are friggin crazy and psychotic.  So A is no longer in the picture.  Good riddance.   Although I’m still on damage control from the lies and angry emotions that resulted.   Even those in close association with A, I tend to be weary of.  And keep my distance as much as I can.  It could have been much worse if B hadn’t been such a great friend and warned me in advance of what was to come.  I’ll pretty much stop here and not give any more details.

Summary

Okay, so I got a house, made some friend changes, and I’m starting to focus on making gains in my photography business more so than ever.  Hey Kelsey, perhaps I’ll even start to do weddings now.  How about that? hehe.  Speaking of friends, I noticed that there were some missing in the gallery that should have been there a long time ago.  I’ll get that corrected tonight.

Oh! And before I forget.  Be sure to check out the blog that I’ve recently assisted in setting up for a coworker.  Especially if your a mother.  Whether you’re old or new to the parenting game, you might find some interest in the latest blog from my dear friend Sophia.  You can find her at http://www.oisso.com

Peace out!