San Jose Sharks vs. Edmonton Oilers Ice Hockey

Two nights ago I had some unexpected free time in the evening and was looking for something fun to photograph. I realized that the Sharks were playing the Oilers and put in a last minute request for credentials (at 4:30pm which is cutting it a little close). My friends at the Sharks were kind enough to oblige and off I went to fire off a couple thousand frames. While I was there, I realized that I have not photographed professional hockey since the Vancouver Olympics. It was fun to get back into the groove.
 

Antero Nittymaki getting ready for the start of the game.

Dan Boyle getting ready to break out of the defensive zone, rounding the net with the puck.

Solid defense from the Sharks for most of the night (only letting in one goal for the win).

Here you can see the concentration in the eyes of the athletes and the puck just waiting for someone to make a play.

 Ryan Clowe working hard in front of the net, trying to screen their goalie, Nikolai Khabibulin.

Logan Couture, the rookie, has been on fire. He has already scored 18 goals this season. Here he draws a penalty by working hard in the offensive zone...

...and ending up in the net.

Here is a shot of Dany Heatley making a point blank shot on net, but Khabibulin stoned him and kept it out of the net.

Another stop by Khabibulin.

The Sharks finally scored a goal in the second period.

Big Joe Thornton enjoying the game.

I love this shot of Dany Heatley working hard in front of the net.

Here the Sharks score for the second time. You can see the puck hitting the back of the net.
 

Torrey Mitchell flexing the stick to get the most power on his slap shot.

A funny thing happened when I was shooting this game. I shot most of these images with the Canon 1D Mark IV (which shoots 10 pictures per second) but also decided to use the Canon 5D Mark II with a Fisheye lens, like I did at the Winter Olympics. At the beginning of the second break, a gentleman came up to me, a little perplexed, and asked which lens I was using for the close-up shots. I told him about my setup with the Fisheye lens and he told me that he saw and liked my previous wide shots from the Olympics. As I explained to him, there are times when the athletes are right in front of me and I can not photograph them with a long lens (I was using the 70-200mm), so it is fun to try the wide lens to see what I get with that focal length. As you can tell from the image above, it really can pay off. This wide view really makes you feel like you are on the ice with them!

One more thing...Happy holidays everyone!!!

The Lunar Eclipse - Red moon

Last night was the Lunar Eclipse and my daughter made sure that we were out there to see it. She is studying the moon at school and was very excited about this event. She asked me to take pictures, as if I wouldn't have :)

Since we had been having rain and clouds for most of the day, I was not sure that we would even see the moon. But, as we approached 11pm, the clouds were nice enough to separate and give us glimpses of the eclipse.

This image was taken at 10:56pm, showing the partial eclipse. (You can click on any of the images to make them larger.)

 And then another shot taken at 11:18pm showing much less of the moon.

And then at 11:46pm, I fired off this shot of the moon, with the red glow very prominent. It was easy to see the color change, even with the naked eye, but even more exciting when I shot this and we saw the image on the LCD of the camera. (Photographer note: I used my Canon 5D Mark II with the Canon 100-400mm lens fully extended out to 400mm. I also used a Canon 1.4x adaptor to extend the range of the lens and get as close as I could. I manually focused, using LiveView to zoom in close and double check my focus detail. The camera was mounted on a Gitzo tripod and I used a cable release to avoid any camera shake when hitting the shutter. I used a combination of shooting in Aperture Priority mode (stopping down 1 to 2 stops) and manual mode, depending on the brightness of the moon. I wanted to keep my ISO as low as possible but needed a fast enough shutter speed to capture the moon clearly, trying to grab the image before the rotation of the earth showed movement in the moon.)

Shooting in Central Park - Modeling in New York City

Last Wednesday afternoon, while in New York City, myself and Scott (my cousin's daughter's boyfriend) made a trip into Central Park to take some new portrait shots of him. The weather was clear and cold, which was not ideal shooting weather, but we made it work.

Somewhere on the East Side near 150th, we heard about a garden within Central Park, and although it was winter time, it was still a cool place to take photos.

We managed to get Danielle (my cousin's daughter - whom I just consider my niece) out to join us for 30 minutes during her lunch break. It was a great chance to take photos of the two of them. They make a great couple!

Danielle was not exactly the willing subject at first, but once I showed her that she looked great on camera, she warmed up and let me take more shots of her. (Photographer note: Since most of us do not like to have our pictures taken, it is imperative to interact with your subject and show them your results. Once they see that you can make them look great, you will get a much more relaxed and willing subject at the other end of your lens.)

I scouted the location and found this cool fence on the upper area of the garden. I asked Danielle to hop on the other side and peak through the bars. I really like the way that the fence frames her face. (Photographer note: It would have been an even better photo if I had brought a diffuser with me, to block out the hot sunlight on her neck, but sometimes you make do with what you have, or don't have.)

After Danielle went back to work, Scott and I continued looking for cool places to photograph. I saw these trees in the distance and figured that the golden color would make a great background for him. I walked down the path, so that Scott was high above me, and shot these images of him up on the rocks.

(Photographer note: I took these images at f4.5 to maintain more of the detail in the leaves. I could have shot these at f2.8 which would have diffused them more, but I liked seeing a little more of the last fall colors in the trees.)

I really love this bridge (Bow Bridge), which is not too far from Strawberry Fields in Central Park. The pale color of the bridge along with the patterns, make this an ideal location for shooting. I had Scott stand on the bridge, waited for everyone else to clear away (although there weren't too many people out in the 29 degree weather), and I hopped a little fence and shot from the outside of the bridge. (Photographer note: I shot this photo at f2.8 because I really wanted to create a focus point exactly on Scott's face and I wanted everything else to fall out of focus. I also wanted to try and soften the trees in the background, since they would be very distracting if they were in focus.)

New York in December (Christmas Decorations)

I spent this week in New York City, presenting my work at B&H (largest photo store in the world) and roaming the streets to capture images of the Big Apple during the holiday season. This city really does come even more alive during the month of December.

My first stop was the original Macys store. As you can see, their theme this year is "Believe" and the windows had animated scenes from the "Miracle on 34th Street" movie.

Many of the streets were lined with decorated trees. I liked this one particular shot (5th Ave) with the well lit trees and the street vendor. This really does scream NY during the holidays.

I went over to Rockefeller Center to capture images of the Christmas tree.  I am always frustrated when photographing here since they do not allow tripods. I would use mine until a police officer came up and told me to stop. When I asked why I could not use a tripod, none of them has a good answer. Ughhh.

Moving to the next spot, after being kicked out of the first location, I set up the tripod for a quick shot of the ice skaters and the tree. I know that I was pushing the rules, but I think that the shot is worth it. :)

This is one of the more interesting displays. These are giant Christmas lights which are on display about one block from Radio City Music Hall.

I decided to take the camera off of my tripod and add some movement (and zoom effect) to the lights and like the end result. Something different.

I have taken pictures of Radio City before but never at this time of year. Across the street (kitty corner) from the music hall, there is this huge stack of ornaments in the middle of a fountain. I moved around until I had framed the shot so that the Radio City signs were in between the ornaments.

After shooting the first Radio City shot, I noticed the great colors being reflected in the fountain and framed this shot to highlight the colors in the reflection. I realized that if I shot an image from a higher vantage point, I would get even more reflection. So...I stepped up on the wall by the fountain, and yep, once again had a police officer say that I could not do that. Again, no reason...so weird.

One block further and I came across this office building with toy soldiers in front of each pillar.

On Wednesday, I was shooting images in Central Park and remembered that it was the 30th Anniversary of John Lennon's death. I made my way over to the Dakota Building and watched all of the media reporting from John's previous home. Then I walked across the street and into Strawberry Fields (a portion of Central Park dedicated to John Lennon) to see a huge gathering of people singing Beatles songs. It was truly amazing to see and hear this remembrance.

I wanted to shoot an image of his memorial circle, but with the huge crowd, I knew that it would be impossible to make my way into the middle of the gathering. I tried standing on a nearby bench, but it was too far from the memorial, so I came up with plan B. I mounted my Canon 1D Mark IV on my tripod, extended the legs all the way, set the timer for a 2 second delay, preset the focus, hit the shutter and extended the tripod above the crowd, looking down at the center of the crowd. Got it!

At the end of the day, I was walking out of the park and saw this awesome crescent moon in the deep blue sky. I ran to a clearing and caught the moon next to this beautiful building.

Walking back to my hotel at 1am (in 25 degree weather - yikes), I stopped in Times Square to shoot some motion blur images of the cabs going by. I have done this before on previous trips to NY, but it never seems to get old. After shooting images here for 20 minutes I reached my breaking point (freezing my tail off) and headed back to my hotel. For the remainder of my walk, I thought about this crazy city. As many times as I have been here, not being my favorite city, it sure is nice this time of year. There definitely is a different energy in the air...hopefully I was able to capture some of that for you.

Gambling on having a great Bar Mitzvah

Yesterday I had the good fortune to spend the day with another family celebrating a Bar Mitzvah. I arrived at the Temple early in the morning and, for the first time ever at this Temple, we had rain coming down from the skies. It wasn't heavy rain but it was just enough to make it uncomfortable for the family if we were to try to shoot photos outside. But, when I saw the amazing fall colors in the tress, I knew that we had to get some images with this as the background.

I found a great spot in the entryway to the Temple. I opened both doors, and we had an area that was covered, but open to the trees. And there we shot for the next hour. I shot some of the images at an aperture that blurred the background...

...and sometimes I would narrow the aperture to show the background in more detail. (Photographer note: In order to bring out the family members, I used an on-camera flash at one stop under, to light them evening but not blow them out. If I had not done that, they would have been silhouetted by the bright background. )
 

After shooting some additional family pictures in the front of the Temple, I walked back in to find Ethan practicing for the big moment. He was just finishing up as I walked in, and flashed me two thumbs up. I love this moment!

For the first time, I decided to try the new Sigma 85mm 1.4 lens for shooting the sequence when the child walks with the Torah. I really like the way that the wide aperture separates Ethan and the Rabbi from the background. (Photographer note: The disadvantage of using a prime lens in this situation is that I could not zoom with the movement of the child. The advantage of this lens is that, not only did I get great depth of field, the wide aperture gains me shutter speed, letting me shoot at 1/400th at ISO 1600.)

I always look for those key moments during any event that I photograph. This was one of those moments when, in the middle of the service, Ethan's parents made him crack up.

And then, later in the evening, it was party time. This was the first time that I have photographed a "casino night" theme for the kids and it was fun. There is nothing like watching 13 year old kids playing roulette, craps and poker. 

The kids were having a great time and I had a great time trying to capture their intensity. Here again I used the fast Sigma lens to grab the fast action even in the low light.

 

I got down on my knees, low to the table and focused on the child's eyes and waited until the child was ready to throw the dice. Right as they threw the dice, I hit the shutter to get the dice in the air in front of them. Fun stuff for them and me! :)  

(Photographers note: Any time you are shooting with a lens at 1.4 or 1.2 and your depth of field is very narrow, it is critical to get the focus on the subject's eyes and let everything else fall into place.)

A.J. (the DJ) was breaking the kids into teams for a challenge, and I saw them standing around in groups of 8 or 9 and thought that this would be a perfect time to shoot up on them. So I switched to a 16-35mm lens, put on a flash diffuser and convinced the kids to huddle above me as I laid down on the ground. I tried this a year ago at another Bar Mitzvah and loved the end result, and it continues to make me smile.

Mexican cruise - Part III - Cabo San Lucas

As you can imagine, when taking a cruise, there is a lot of time spent on the ship (which means that there is a lot of time to eat and drink). We did our best to resist the temptations of all the food in the buffet area and, as per my mother's request, we had dinner in the formal dining area every evening. I took my camera for a couple of the evenings and shot some images of the family.

The toughest challenge of being a photographer is taking a good picture of my mother. She usually hates every picture of her, so when she says "hey, I actually look good in your pictures", that is a big deal. This is one of my favorite images of her.

And speaking of favorite images, I like this one of my wife. Usually, whenever I point my camera in her general direction, I get a goofy "please don't take another picture of me" look. But here she was nice enough to grace me with a "real" look and she looks great!

The toughest part of having dinner at 5:45pm was juggling the meal with the sunset. We had a couple of really nice sunsets during the week, which required me quickly excusing myself and running out to grab some shots and run back for dinner.

The last stop on our Mexican cruise was Cabo San Lucas, which is a really cool place with great rock formations and beaches. We have been to Cabo a couple of times before, but not in the last 10 years. There was some great wildlife surrounding the marina.

I had our water taxi driver go right up to the rocks to get this shot. There were at least 40 of these guys on the rocks but I really liked the grouping in the middle since they were all looking up, sunning themselves. I also like the little guy on the left who is using the first sea lion as a pillow.

It wasn't until the end of our water taxi ride that I realized that there was a ladder onto the roof for a better viewing area. We all went up to the top to get a family picture.

And...you can not go to Cabo San Lucas without having a drink at Cabo Wabo. This is the bar that is owned by rock singer Sammy Hagar (and I am a big fan of Sammy). I ended up drinking both of these drinks since they were too strong for Annette...and...well...let's just say that I was very happy for a while. :)

As we were pulling out of Cabo, I had sobered up enough to run up to the top deck (front of the ship) and shoot these sunset images. It was just me and one other guy with a Nikon DSLR grabbing shots from up top. You can see the famous "El Arco" (The Arch) to the left of center.

This was my last shot of the trip as we pulled out of the bay and into the open waters of the Pacific. It was a really nice relaxing week away from phones and email, but now I am back to the rat race. :)