The Curse of the Royals Spring Promotion struck, as usual, and the weather was miserable-- light flurries, temps in the high twenties, and wind blowing at about 40mph. Thousands of true blue fans showed up anyway.
The stadium's rennovations are very nice, but the weather was so ghastly that its depressing to even look at most of the photos I took. Freezing cold people huddled together against the wind, in a grayscape of cloud and freezing rain. It just didn't look like baseball season, either at the event or in the photos I took there. Frustrating, but I will have other opportunities to take photos of Kaufmann in better conditions.
I did enjoy setting the 40d to shutter speed priority and taking some pics of the children's carousel they've installed past left field. I'm still having a blast with the Av and Tv modes the camera offers. I know these pics are fairly standard in composition but I really like them. I'm getting better at conveying motion while still creating a coherent image.
Outside, we located one of the best presents I've ever recieved-- a brick installed in front of Gate C as a gift to my wife and I from our friend Greg. Even the weather couldn't dampen Morgan's smile as she stood behind it.
I bought some basic materials and turned my bedroom into an ad hoc studio. I don't have room or funding for a proper studio, but I hung some white linen shower curtains from the bedroom wall, put some white sheets on the bed, and bought a couple of large shop lights for additional lighting. I can set it all up and take it back down in 5 minutes if I wish, and I convinced Morgan to pose for a bit of formal portraiture, since I have been doing candids exclusively since I bought the 40d. My primary concern was generating enough lighting and making that lighting flexible, and my secondary concern was creating a background that wouldn't distract. Of course I set my apeture wide open so the resultant field of view would be as narrow as possible, hopefully making the background blur into an uninteresting white field behind the subject. This being our first formal photo session, it took a minute for Morgan to get comfortable in front of the camera, but I was pleased with the results:
I'm still struggling mightily with flash photography, but its getting a bit better. I like my concept here, but would rather re-do it later on with better lighting, perhaps even outdoors in daylight, so I can avoid using the flash. Again with the distracting shadows, white balance issues, and loss of color depth, all so I could up the shutter speed enough to catch the ball in the air.
Even though its not remotely baseball related, I want to share one more. Of course I'm biased, but I really love my wife's eyes. The amount of detail captured by the 40d, even with ad hoc lighting is pretty cool. Morgan did a great job of holding still and putting up with having the lens constantly floating around her face. I'm a lucky man.
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