Shooting From The Stands

I fell in love with shooting football a few years ago. 

And once you shoot football from the sidelines, it's really anti-climactic to head back up into the stands.  The lens just becomes one giant set of binoculars, truly.  But, I'm learning to love it.

I'm learning.

Sometimes, because you're so far away, you get this distance blur.  And sometimes, when the sun is shining, you get funky sun spots.

 But then again, as they're getting ready to take the field, you're close enough to get a great face.

It is nice to be able to sit back and relax and put my feet up on the bench in front of me and canoodle with my beloved and actually watch the game.

And eat caramel corn and hot dogs.

And not have to run 100 yards 47 times to get the best angle.

Sometimes I move down closer to get a better shot.  Sometimes I don't tell Prince Charming I'm going and then he turns around to smooch me and the woman sitting next to him looks startled and then I laugh.

 

There are great story moments to be told from the stands.

And of course, great cheers.

WHO DAT TALKIN' BOUT BEAT MY KNIGHTS!?

"Yeah, but that's not us anymore."

I know, but we're still all the same family.  WHO DAT? WHO DAT?

"But, that's not our team."

Well, until they go against us, they are.

LET'S GET FIRED UP!  

KNIGHTS PUT YOUR SHIELDS UP!

How Many Pictures Of A Sunset Can You Take?

We were at the beach all weekend, and the only pictures I took were of the sunset on Sunday evening.  It went a little something like this:

#1

The first picture that I took, forgetting that my camera was set to Manual because the last time I'd used it was outside and I wanted to adjust my settings, but that was like, three days earlier and by Sunday night I'd forgotten where I had it set.

#2

Flipped it to Auto and went vertical to get the funky shaped clouds.

#3

Went back to the Manual settings (which I adjusted to my liking) and turned the camera horizontally to get more of a wider image.

#4
Gave in to the Girlie who was jumping up and down to take a picture, but then she just grabbed the camera out of my hands and she started pressing buttons before I had a chance to take it off my neck .  We have 7 pictures that look just like this one.

#5

After the sun was gone.

#6

Flipped it to the Sunset setting and zoomed way in.  I don't use those pre-sets too often, but, you know, sometimes you just don't want to have to think about it. 

#7

Put the camera away, because really, who needs this many pictures of the same sunset?  But, then my beloved made me get it back out because the sky was turning all pink and rainbowy and he thought I should really get that, so I had to get it all set up again, went back on Manual and click.

#8

He made me get this one, too, when the sun was really gone and the sky was really pink and it was getting too dark to take a decent picture without my big lens, which I didn't have, and I just wanted to drink my wine and watch Iron Man already.

So, let's see.  How many is that?  47?

The answer to the question is that you can take 47 pictures of a sunset.

More, if you let your kid handle the camera.

You Might Be A Football/Cheer Mom If....

You might be a football/cheer mom if...

You send your kids off to do chores by gathering them in front of you and shouting,
"Chores on BREAK!  READDDYYYY!?  BREAK!"
And then everyone claps.

Your 6-year-old daughter can spell OFFENSE, DEFENSE, WHIP IT, SCORE, LET'S GO, ACTION and RED HOT, but has trouble reading the word they.

Sitting on the sidelines, you hear the coach screaming "mmphm blah blah the side mmphm blah!" and your husband sitting next to you elbows you and says,
"YES!  That's EXACTLY what I'd do.  Right down the side like that and then cut over .  EXACTLY!"

A ponytail flounces into your kitchen and orders up a sandwich with peanut butter and

J-A-M, Jam Jam!

J-A-M!

You've got to, got to JAM!

Your kid has 47 pairs of neon yellow socks so you can spot him in an instant from 50 yards away.

You break down every activity into counts of 8.
Water on, 2, 3, 4, and off, 6, 7, 8.

You must forcibly restrain yourself so as not to demonstrate for the cheer coach a little something called

Knights don't mess arouuund, 

They just get down.

Uh-Huh!

Daddy watches his little girl bounce around, so happy and tearful and bursting with pride.
"Isn't she great?  So cute!"
Mommy watches her little girl bounce around and scowls at the spaghetti arms, straight finger clap, and her absolutely unmistakable need to pop it.
"Did she just yawn!?  While she was cheering!?  Oh, we're takin' this dooowwwntown."

You know what a "Punch-Sassy-Sassy-Sassy" is.

You recognize that August 1st through the middle of November is Football Season,
and everything in between is Not Football Season.

Cheer hard!!

Let's Do 52 ~ Week 33 {Guilty Pleasure}

My guilty pleasure is photographing people who are photographing themselves at a Gilligan's Island party

when they don't know that I'm photographing them, too,

then messing around with the picture in Photoshop,

then putting it on the internet so everyone can see it.

MMMM-WAA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAA!

Okay. No.

Really, my guilty pleasure is chocolate, but food photography makes me gag.

But this post seems really short, and I feel like I should say a bit more about my guilty pleasures.  So, here are a few more of my photographic guilty pleasures:

1.  Sports the way that I want shoot it.

     Not worrying about faces or focus.  Just that perfect moment of action that becomes art.  I love that.

2.  Black & White

     Because I love it and I don't care what anyone else says.  Nothing tells a story like black and white.

3.  Natural Light

Not really a guilty pleasure, but I hate flash light so much that I'd rather not take the picture than use it, so I have been guilty of taking/posting/handing over/talking up slightly blurry images because natural light rules and flash light drools. 

4.  Feet

Boy, have I taken some shit on this one.
"We don't want feet."...."Where are the faces?"...."Why is she taking pictures of people's shoes?"...
Well, guess what?  Feet tell a story that faces don't.  You can fake a face, but you can't fake the shoes.  It's a different angle.  A new perspective and I'm doin' it 'cause I can and I'm the one with the camera.
You wanna' piece of me!?
Sorry.....sometimes I get a little defensive.  My art is me and all that....

5.  Accepting the picture the way it is and not trying to adjust it or fix it.
There are moments when I just don't care about white balance or overexposure or distortion.  Sometimes I just want it the way I want it, no matter how technically incorrect it may be.  My brothers always used to give me a really hard time about that...and when I say "used to" I mean every, single time I see them to this day....

"Ohhh, Lis.  Gotta' have it the way you want it.  Big princess.  World revolves around you.  Can't have it any other way than the way you want it."

What's wrong with that?  Wouldn't everyone want it that way?

I mean, who wants it NOT the way they want it?

I think you see what I'm saying....which is that they're dorks and I rule all.

But, we can save that discussion for next time.

Island Days

My parents have some friends that live on an island out in a harbor and for four summers now we've been lucky enough to bring our brood out there for a day to visit.

We eat, and fish, and swim,

and ride in a boat, and marvel at the view,

and and pick out which house we'd like to live in then decide that really, who are we kidding?

We'd take any one of them.

And our children run in the woods barefoot, and ride on the rope swing,

and stuff ice cream into their faces, and cover their bodies in dirt and sand and sweat and smiles.

Then the mothers all dart around trying to gather everything up

while the fathers try to corral the kids in the car so we can head for home and

allow our gracious hosts the privacy required for a collective collapse on the lawn.

I usually take a ton of pictures when we're there, but with everything that I've been working on lately, I wasn't even going to bring my camera, but then Prince Charming said,

Yeah, but then you'll see something great and you'll wish you had your camera,

and I really hate it when he's right.

So, I brought it.

And I was glad.