Cat and mouse game

The reaction to this picture was pretty mixed in the newsroom. There was the group who said nice shot and the group who revolted in disgust.

I was shooting an assignment at the Tracy Animal Shelter when one of the shelter’s house cats “Mikey” was jumping up and down in a corner area outside the kennels. He had cornered a field mouse and was heading in for the kill.

I watched for a while until he settled down to enjoy his afternoon snack. I switched the camera to autofocus and put it as close as I dare while he was eating. “Mikey” just gave me that look of “it’s my mouse go find your own” and settled down to eat.

We started guessing if we publish the photo how many complaints the paper will field. I said 25.

paint a rosy picture

On assignment today I happen to catch site of the roses growing next to the Tracy Library. I knew they could make a pretty picture but the background was a jumbled mess of parking lot and cars, what to do?

Backgrounds can kill or cure a picture. The easy solution was to use the background to my advantage. Getting in close I used the book drop box as my background. Its solid blue color provided a pretty backdrop for the red and green colors of the plant. A long lens and tight in-camera crop isolated the flowers for a pretty picture.

Temperament testing

The joys of shooting the Pet of the Week assignment. Meet Gunther, an 8-year-old Doberman. 100 pounds or so of fur and teeth. Just to see if Gunther had passed the social tests during the shoot they threw pieces of hot dog at me to see if Gunther would bolt after them and me. Gunther knew that chubby photographers are high in cholesterol and left me alone.

Situational awareness

Fighter pilots are a rare breed. In the heat of battle during their dogfight they have to factor a number of variables in to their battle from the maximum speed of their foes airplane to the wind direction in case they have to bail out. All these facts and figure floating about their minds while they fly makes for a busy time. Keeping track of all these items is often referred to as situational awareness. In short, you have to pay attention to what going on around you.

I was shooting the west high softball game today and I had my own equations going on. Here were my two views of the action unfolding.

I was shooting form the third base line side of he field as West high advanced a runner to second. Now with a runner in scoring position my options are shoot from third base line to get a view of any play at third with the possibility of the batter reaching second on a play but I can’t shoot a scoring play from this position as I will only get the West high player’s back.

Now I could change shooting positions to the first base line to get the runner at second if she tries to score along with a view of a play at third from the side as well as a batter shot but then I lose any type of play at second base on the slide but since I am still in early inning action I could always change back for a play at second and the action potential home plate is better.

I had until the next batter left the dugout to run those two scenarios through my mind. I hustle to the first base line just in time to capture this collision at home. Situational awareness, it really works to pay attention.

Numbers

Students at Tracy High were busy on a special project the last few weeks. Sophomores in Steve Drouin’s world history class have been getting a lesson in numbers.

Using sheets of paper they mark circles to represent people killed in the genocide in Rwanda. Nearly 1,000,000,000 people were thought murdered in weeks of bloodshed in 1994. Students filled pages with circles to mark each life taken.

The circles cover a hallway near the history classrooms. A stark reminder of the brutality man inflicts upon the helpless in society.

Beat it

I stumbled across members of the Tracy High drum line practicing for their performance at Saturday’s farmers market. I settled on a low angle to get as much of the drums in the frame and give a different look to the photo. I learned two things during the shoot. The drums push out an incredible amount of air when they are struck and it is really loud down there.

Rock City adventure

Today’s outing found me and my hiking mentor Alice DeLaurier-O'Neil on the trials of Mount Diablo’s Rock City.

We spent a good part of the day hiking among the many trails and rock formations that make up a part of Mount Diablo.

Weather was clear and windy as we wound our way up the rocky ledges and sandstone formations.

There were lots of good photo opportunities from the wind Caves to Sentinel Rock to the pinecones and butterflies along the trail. We even bumped into a Boy Scout troop out for a day of rock climbing.

I’m looking forward to our next hike that will test our legs and climbing ability up the mountain.

Trick shot

The high school sports season is winding down as teams prepare for their playoff runs.

Tracy High was playing their last schedule match of the year and I set up a shooting position near the goal box. Shooting with the 300mm with 1.4x extender gave me a tight shot on the action at midfield.

Soccer is one of those sports where you have to anticipate the action if you want to capture. You get used to watching the eyes of the players to tell when the ball is heading toward them. A fast motor drive, good timing and anticipating where the players are moving can lead to a good shot.

I followed the action on a corner kick as the Tracy High player jumped in to try to steer the ball into the net as the Franklin High player defended her. I got lucky and captured the clash of heads as they met at the ball.

Hat dance

You can’t miss on this assignment. While shooting the Cinco de Mayo celebration I was treated to a group of preschool students performing a Mexican hat dance. Cute kids, lots of colorful costumes, it’s a photographers dream, just get something in focus and you can’t go wrong.

Musical memories

It’s funny how a photograph can conjure up a memory from long ago.

I was shooting the Cinco de Mayo celebration at West Park School where a mariachi group was serenading the school’s principal. Listening to them I remembered back to my grade school days where I would go to the Portuguese Mass at St. Bernard’s with mom and brother.

I can’t speak a lick of the language so I would sit quietly in the pew wondering what the heck was going on. The only part I liked was the mariachi band that often accompanied the Mass.

Today’s players reminded me of those days as they would march through the church strumming their guitars. Those were rocking times.

Rhythm

Music has a beat; it has a rhythm that you can feel. Sometimes the silence between the notes is just as important as what you hear. Photos can be like that too.

You hear people say a photo has good lines; it has a sense of movement. Repetitive patterns in a picture can be a deafening as the bang of a drum. We can throw in converging parallels lines to show distance like a fading echo, we place a dominant object in the foreground like a crescendo. And just like the pause between notes we can leave empty space in a picture to convey a rhythm of sorts.

I was at a dance troop rehearsal for a performance a few months ago when I took this picture. I wasn’t sure we would run it because I put a lot of “dead space” in the frame. I caught the dancer grouped against a bank of lights. I like the feeling of pause before they move into the frame. It is that feel of rhythm, a sense of movement even though they are standing still.

Welcome back

Damn it feels good to have my Canon back! After four days of muddling through assignments with a Nikon D70 I am back in the high life with my Eos 1D MKII. It felt good shooting assignments like today’s West High baseball game with my trusty work camera.

You wouldn’t think one camera can change the way you shoot but it does. Back to a camera with a high speed motor drive. Once again with in camera color management that produce images that aren’t too blue. A nice hefty 8 million-megapixel resolution for sharp looking pictures and just the good quality features of the Canon that makes it a fun and easy camera to use professionally.

I was told the official reason for the camera malfunction was “a bent internal part that produced a ERR 99 code.” I still think I popped a shutter blade and that was the bent part flopping around the camera body.

I put 2 ½ hard years of shooting on the camera before I had a problem with it. That is far longer than our original Nikon digital camera made it to. Hopefully I will have a couple more years and hundreds of thousands of pictures before I have another problem with camera

Dangerous drive

Heading back into town from an assignment I heard the call on the scanner of a car that was traveling down 11th Street after a hit and run accident.

The car was being followed by witnesses to 11th Street near Crossroads Drive where it finally crashed into a light pole in the median.

Thankfully no one was seriously injured in the crash that was one of the more spectacular looking ones I have been to in awhile.

Footloose

I was assigned to photograph eighth grade students at Wicklund School learning the ropes of ballroom dancing.

As they twirled and stepped about the multi-purpose room floor I was trying to figure out an interesting angle to shoot the young dancers.

I noticed that most of the young ladies had changed into their dance shoes before they took the floor while the guys still sported their sneakers. I framed a couple of dancers in the background between the footwear and I knew I had my shot.

Last rites