Who's Having More Fun?

Last night was our regular Monday Night Meetup in Safety Harbor, FL. We had a couple models come in for a model shoot, which everyone enjoyed.

Since I'm not really into shooting models after having my fill in the late '70s, I sat around at the picnic tables and talked with my friends. All of a sudden, Jean pointed out a photo opp right up my alley. She spotted this dad giving his toddler a ride on her kiddie car. I thought it was hilarious; especially with Daddy wearing a helmet.

Just as I was ready to shoot, the father got off the kiddie bike. I asked him to get back on it and ride so I could get a photo of it since he looked like he was having so much fun. He graciously obliged and this is the result. He only sat there for about a minute and this one was my choice of the 5 I shot because of his expression.

I want to know, though, who's having more fun--Daddy or his little girl?

...and he makes the catch!

...and he makes the catch!

During Little League AAA's practice, Noah makes the catch even with the sun in his eyes. Great job, Noah!

The continuing saga of my vacation in NY a couple weeks ago. While the triplets were playing baseball, I had the task of watching the twins on the playground. I was forced to shoot from too far away if I wanted any baseball photos at all.

This one was shot with my 55-250mm lens from a distance that I'm not good at judging. All I can say is there was two baseball fields and one basketball court between where I was at the playground, and where this practice session was taking place. It was also freezing, well, for me it was at 52 deg F. Noah was playing left field if I can remember correctly when he caught this ball.

Summertime at Ft Desoto

While at Ft Desoto the other evening, I saw this woman photographing something on the beach. I'm not sure if she was photographing the woman and boy walking in front of her, or just the beach in general.

For me, I saw a perfect shot with the Laughing Gulls flying all around her and the pink tinge in the clouds that can only be seen during sunset.

When photographing the sunset, we usually get mesmerized by the beauty of the sunset itself. Don't forget to turn around. You just might spot a much better image like this one. The light is warm, directional and the textures, forms and shapes are brought out like no other lighting.

For this image, the light was coming from the sun about a 90° angle to my subject which as previously mentioned, brought out the texture in the sand and sea grasses. I shot this image at 1/800 (to stop the motion of the birds in flight) at F5. Since there was a lot of light areas, I added 1 stop exposure compensation to keep the birds, skin tones and sky from being underexposed. For those of you who use point-n-shoot cameras, if you have a beach or snow mode, this would work well for this type of image. My ISO was set at 200 and I used my 55-250mm lens at 96mm. I used Aperture Priority mode and Partial metering.