8. Differences

Today I took a break from a project that I have been knee deep into lately. It’s required a lot of concentration and was giving me a headache. I needed a little right brain vacation from my left brain project. A photographer friend who’s work I really admire, Laura :), recently posted about  an editing program that really peeked my curiosity. I made the leap and purchased the program and then had some fun today. I went digging into my archives from the last few months and dug out a few photos that I liked but didn’t love…. I’m still in the experimental stages but I thought it might be good to make a post under the theme “Differences” and just show you a comparison….

The photo itself isn’t very interesting, but I am emotionally attached to it. I took it last fall when I was visiting my family in Indiana. On this particular day I was wandering around downtown Fort Wayne looking for fall colors. I liked the leading line of the sidewalk but never felt like it was composed correctly. Oh well, it came in handy today when I needed a photo to play around with! I think my head is starting to feel better already… 🙂

Before

After

2. Below The Knees

A couple weeks ago my husband and I were given two tickets to go watch the Tampa Bay Lightening vs. Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game. My husband is from Maine, was very active with the University of Maine Black Bears and both of his sons played a lot of hockey as kids. He loves the game!  I on the other hand am from Indiana. I grew up on IU basketball. And I hate the Purdue Boilermakers. Don’t ask me why, I’m not really sure. I think my mom told me I had to, it’s a family rule.  In Indiana you are either an IU fan or a Purdue fan. And I still make fun of Gene Keady’s hair. If you have to ask… well don’t.

Sorry I digress. I agreed to go to the game or a few reasons. I thought it would be fun to spend time with my husband doing something he enjoys so much, he said the tickets were in the 4th row, I thought a hotdog sounded good to eat and I thought I would get a few shots for the 52-week photo challenge without a whole lot of effort. After all, he did say 4th row!

At first I thought I was going to try to get a good panning shot. My sitting so close proved to be problematic for panning. I couldn’t even get a lock on the player before he was gone and shooting through the big giant plastic wall wasn’t helpful trying to focus either. I guess now I know why there weren’t any other people sitting with cameras that I could see. They were more focused on yelling at everyone to punch each other! I ate my hotdog and plotted a new strategy. I decided to focus on just the goalie. And in particular the goalie “below the knees”. It was still a struggle to focus on him and try and look out the corner of my eye at the jumbo-tron at the same time. It was hard to know when they were headed back to my end of the arena. I did all of this while balancing my hotdog on my lap! I’m going to have to use a few so you can see that I did get better at it and managed to even catch the puck slipping through the goalies knees and into the goal. All this was accomplished with only 1 drip down the front of my shirt from my hotdog! The last photo made the cut because Santa Claus appears to be enjoying a big cold beer in the stands. And that made me giggle. I wonder if he ate a hotdog? I didn’t see any mustard down the front of his shirt…

 

 

19. Horses and Humans

I was driving near the polo fields today when I noticed a couple riders in one of the practice fields. I really was hoping that if I waited long enough they would make their way a little bit, or actually a lot closer. That didn’t happen, but I was still happy to take a few minutes and just watch them. The photo really doesn’t do justice to the skills of the riders or how beautiful the horse were.

I did a little research when I got home and here are a couple facts I learned. Free flowing manes and tails are a danger in polo because they can become entangled with players’ mallets or with the reins as the rider tries to control the horse. Manes, therefore are shaved and the ponies’ tails are wrapped or braided to prevent the hazard.  Also, lefties are banned from polo. To understand why, consider this: you’re driving down the road when all of a sudden, coming straight at you, is a crazed English person (Patricia) driving on the left side of the road. The panic you’d feel in the situation is just what a right-handed polo player feels when he and a lefty approach the ball from opposite directions.

The polo season is just getting started here in Lakewood Ranch. To see this years schedule click here. It’s been several years since I have been to a match. If anyone is interested, I think we should get together a group and go sometime. It would be fun to pack a picnic and take our cameras out for a little practice. There are a lot of photo themes just waiting there for us: below the knees, panning, at a distance and of course horses and humans!