Photographing a Track and Field meet (for the first time)

This weekend marked another first for me, as I photographed my first track and field meet. My son just started this sport (adding to his hockey, swimming, basketball...) and asked me to bring the camera to their first meet. The great thing about photographing a meet like this is that there are so many different types of events happening, all of which present unique shooting opportunities.

The day started off with running races. I positioned myself by the first turn and shot many images from this spot. I did this for numerous reasons:
    1. I felt that the turn would provide a better image than a straight-on shot.
    2. The sun was out in the morning and the light was better on this side of the track.
    3. There were minimal distractions behind the runners in this area.
    4. In the relay races, this is where the baton was passed, giving me more action.

The races with hurdles make for some cool shots. The level of activity and the intense concentration really adds to the image.  

This is one of my favorite shots from the day. I really like the position of the runner with his shoe flat out in front of him. He has a great expression on his face and he shows good form in the shot. It also helps that he wore the red shoes and a black and white uniform. (Photographers note: I shot this meet with the Canon 5D Mark II, mostly using the 100-400 L series lens and a 32GB 600x Lexar CompactFlash card. I kept the camera in aperture priority mode for most of the time, adjusting the ISO to make sure that my shutter speed was at least 1/1000 sec or faster)

I did more to the finish line area to shoot some images of the runners coming across the line. For many of the images, I laid down on the surface and shot images from just inches above the ground. This gave a much more appealing background and also enhanced the power of the runners.

Once they started the high jump, I walked over to this area and shot some images, trying to freeze the girls at the height of their jump.

I really wanted to use my 15mm fish eye lens to get in close and exaggerate the height of the jump, but the only way to do this correctly would be to be on, or at the base of the mat, which would not have been safe. 

For the discus throw, I went out to the edge of the flags and used the 400mm lens to get in as close as possible.

This is another shot from down low on the surface at the start of the race. There is actually a funny story to this image. I was shooting some images of the different races when I heard someone say my name from behind me. It was one of my favorite clients and their son was running in the next heat. I made sure to key in on him (dead center in the red) so that I could get a shot for my friends.

And then, towards the end of the day, I decided to slow the shutter speed down to get some motion blur.

I shot this image at 1/40 sec and panned the camera along with the runners as they went around a turn. (Photographers note: The key to shooting panned motion blur shots is to get the motion of the hands and feet but try to keep their faces sharp. It is not an easy technique and takes some practice to get it right. It's not easy...but final result is well worth the effort.)

More fun on the train tracks (Others wanted to get in on the act)

The last blog post had pictures of my son on the nearby train tracks. Well...my daughter saw those images and said "I want some pictures there too", so off we went to take some more photos. This time I was joined, not only by Ali, but her best friend, Danielle, and my wife and our dog.

I wanted to take some pictures of Ali on the train tracks, but also wanted to try something different from the shots of Connor. This time I went down the embankment and shot images of the girls from the side of the tracks.

For all of these photos, I used the new Sigma 85mm 1.4 lens (http://www.sigmaphoto.com/shop/85mm-f14-ex-dg-hsm-sigma). This lens really rocks! Shooting wide open at f1.4, I was able to focus on the girl's faces and heavily diffuse the background.

This shot really shows the depth of field of the Sigma 85mm 1.4 lens. Only the very front of the railroad spike is in focus, and everything else is soft. Love that!

Best friends. Enough said. :)

 

I even got my wife, Annette, to let me take a couple of shots of her. I took these shots in the last remaining light of the day. You can see the golden sunlight bouncing off of the tracks behind her.  

You what they say...marriage is a balancing act. Isn't that the truth!

For the parting shot of this blog entry, I had to save this image as my grand finale. This shot just cracked me up. This is our dog, Bailey, laying down on the train tracks. I love the look on his face. I can not decide if he looks bored or depressed. The caption could say "Come on Jeff! Enough shooting... let's get moving!" or it could say "I am really depressed...when does the train come?".

Oh - and happy birthday Ali!

Photographing my son (and shooting photos on train tracks)

On Friday, my wife and daughter had some errands to run and it was just my son and I at home. I asked Connor what he wanted to do and, to my delight, he said, "Dad, Let's get the cameras and go shoot some photos." The rain had stopped. so we drove up by Lexington Reservoir in Los Gatos, CA and looked for some cool things to shoot.

It was a cold crisp day and there was a lot of run off from the previous days of rain. As we drove around the reservoir we came across numerous spots with running water coming off the mountains. So, we broke out our tripods and shot some slow shutter speed shots of the water. Connor also shot some macro shots of banana slugs and mossy logs.

 

I saw this sole piece of ivy climbing up a water barrel and liked the composition. Nothing spectacular, but interesting nonetheless.

 

After shooting images for an hour or so, we were driving back towards our house and I stopped by some train tracks which are located less than a mile from our house. I have always wanted to shoot images there, but never have. Connor was willing to be my subject, so we hopped out of the car and shot some photos. As you can see from the image above, we started with Connor just standing on the tracks. Even though I liked this pose, I felt like it needed something more.

So for the next pose I got down low and I asked Connor to do the same thing.

 

I wanted to use the train tracks to "frame" Connor. (Photographer's note: I shot this image using the Canon 100-400 lens at f5 to put the focus on Connor's face, allowing the train tracks to fall out of focus fairly quickly.) We both liked this shot but it didn't seem natural to be laying in the middle of the tracks.

Next, we decided to try some other poses with Connor sitting on the tracks and we liked these the best.

This photo is Connor's favorite which is now printed and enlarged to 13"x19" on the wall of his room. I had him move to the other side of the tracks to get more sunlight on his face. I also wanted to have the trees behind him without the power lines coming out from behind his head.

(Photographers note: When shooting portraits like this, don't be afraid to turn your camera and try different angles. As you can see from this image, the 45 degree angle really helps create drama in the image. I also brought this into NIK Silver Efex Pro to covert the image to black and white.)

Flowers for my mother

It was a week and a half ago that I went up to San Francisco to see my mother after her first surgery. She looked great and there was no way that we would have known that she would not be with us for much longer. She was sitting up and looking good, but needed to get some rest. In classic Betty style, she asked us to go visit the Conservatory of Flowers, which was located in Golden Gate Park, and near the hospital. So...while she rested, my brother sister and I all went over to see the flowers and train set.

There were some really beautiful flowers at this time of year. It was great to take pictures of them and then, bring the camera to the hospital to show them to my mother.

A reflection of the ceiling of the Conservatory photographed in one of the ponds and through some bamboo shoots.

I am not sure why, but this one brown leave caught my attention. It seemed to stand out from everything else, as if it was craving attention.

The ceiling of the Conservatory had some rainbow colored stained glass windows and I wanted to capture that in some images. But I wanted to show them in a creative way. So, I found this pretty formation of leaves and shot this at an aperture that would highlight the leaves while giving a hint of the stained glass.

As I turned the corner into a new area of the exhibition, I came across this tree trunk and thought "wow, that looks like a tortoise".  And then I looked down at the sign and noticed that this is called a Tortoise Plant. Voila!

My father used to love orchids and he passed that on to all of us. When we came across this grouping, we all stopped and admired them. My sister, who likes to paint, asked me to shoot this image for her.

And then...in the last room of the exhibit, we found the model train. Most of this display was made with recycled parts (old cassette tapes, computer parts....). I took a couple of pictures of the train set, since my mom has mentioned it to us. But in looking at the images, it really needed something else to make it more interesting. And then...I saw this really cute little boy who was memorized by the trains. A perfect subject for my photos!

I love the innocence in his expressions and that childhood wonder is his eyes. I made sure to show these to my mom when we returned to her hospital room.

It was my mom's wish for us to go to the Conservatory of Flowers, but now knowing that we had so little time left with her, I wish that I had just stayed and held her hand while she was sleeping.

Goodbye to my mom

It’s 4:30 am and I am sitting next to my mom, as she slowly slips away from this life and into possibly yet another one. Normally my blog is focused solely on photographs, but this entry is dedicated to my mother. On Monday, she went in for a routine operation, although not trivial, but due to complications, she had some major setbacks. After a failed attempt to repair the damage with a second more invasive surgery, and with yet another major surgery and a long grueling recovery ahead of her, she decided that she had enough. With tubes protruding from all different places in her body, including multiple tubes from her nose and mouth, we explained the situation to her. When told about the potential surgery she shook her head to say no and she used her hand, tracing letters on my hand to spell “I want to die” and later she repeatedly wrote the word “Now”. She was a very strong woman with conviction. She knew what she wanted and there was no other way.

The graduation picture of my mother, Betty Cable

My mother was a hell of a woman. She had the gift of gab and bestowed that upon me. My mom would talk to just about anyone, sometimes embarrassing us all. But her outgoing attitude drew people together.

She loved all things that were, as she called it, “culture”. In her life, there was nothing better than fine food, fine wine and the fine arts. She had an unwavering passion for the opera. When we were younger, we would often come back into the house on Saturday mornings to hear the opera of the week blaring on the radio. Us teenagers would roll our eyes and crack jokes about the fat opera singers screaming at the top of their lungs, all while covering our ears. But we all enjoyed the music coming from the CD player in the hospital room, as mom listened to her favorite opera during her last hours.

My proud mother with her 3 kids. Suzanne on the left, David in the middle, and me on the right.

In her younger days, she spent just about every day on the tennis courts. I think she taught me how to swing a racket just about the same time that I learned to walk, and for many many years we would walk down to the local courts and play. I still remember the first time that I legitimately beat her. Was she upset? Nope. She was so proud that her son had excelled at the game and was surpassing her. And she was happy to have me as a doubles partner.

Now, so many years have passed. I haven’t picked up a tennis racket in a long time and she was forced to stop playing due to a bad back. But mom missed her tennis too much and, while wearing her back brace, she took up ping pong. But mom’s passion for fine food, playing bridge and the arts never wavered, Although we enjoyed very different kinds of arts, with mom favoring opera, ballet, and museum visits, and me preferring rock concerts and ice hockey, it was my mom who taught me the passion for music and the arts.

My mother with her 4 grandchildren

My mom was thrifty. Most people who knew her would try to get her to spend her money, but she was the person who insisted on taking the bus when everyone else was hailing a cab. I remember one time when she wanted to take my kids to ice cream in San Francisco, and she pushed for us to get the ice cream cones at Rite Aid because it was a better deal than Ghirardelli Square. The grandkids had another idea. But, at the same time, mom could be unbelievably generous and take the entire family to Club Med or on cruises to Alaska and Mexico. That was her way to get the whole family together and have meals with us each day. Great plan mom!

The whole family (before my sister was married) before a formal dinner on our Alaskan cruise in 2006.

Mom was a latecomer to the Internet and the computer world, but, surprising many of her family and friends, she learned how to use her Mac and loved emailing people. My grandfather used to love mailing us jokes that he typed on his old typewriter, and mom followed her father’s love of joke telling, using email to forward her favorites. She was also one of my most avid readers of my blog and would call me many times to comment on the latest post or ask when the next one would be written.

Here are the 4 grandchildren showing how much taller they had gotten and how short my mother had become (due to her osteoporosis).

For as many years as I can remember, mom would always say “There is nothing that makes me happier than having my whole family together”, and as we all watch her slip away from us, we are all here together, together for her.

Mom, we will miss you more than you know. I hope that you have Internet access wherever you are. I look forward to your comments about this entry.

My mother never liked herself in any of her pictures, but once in a while I would capture one that she really liked. This is one of those images. I took this only 3 months ago while on board our cruise to Mexico. She looks so beautiful and so happy. This image is the way that I want to remember my mom. 

(As a photographer, I sometimes forget the power of the images that I am taking, and the fact that I am capturing history with my cameras. This single image will always remind me of that fact.)

My mother passed away at 6:35am on Sunday morning and we already miss her too much!

High School Girls and Guitars - A Charity Event

This past weekend, I was asked to shoot some photos to be used at a charity event at Presentation High School. Our good friend, Tracey, was in charge of this event and wanted to have a group picture in a cool place. Since the theme of the charity event is going to be "On Tour", she thought it would be cool to have the pictures taken at a local guitar shop. So Tracey called The Guitar Center in Santa Clara and they agreed to help out.

The people at the Guitar Center were great and they opened their special room (with the really expensive electric guitars) and removed all of the price tags, which would have been distracting to the image. The problem was...there was a glass wall on one side and a wall of glass doors on the other. To make things even more challenging, the ceiling was black. All this is perfect if you are trying a guitar, but not so great if you are trying to "compose" with your camera. (Good pun, huh?)

So...what did I do? I angled the 580EXII flash at a 45 degree and lit the room with a bunch of reflecting light. And you know what? It actually worked. :)

The goal was to get one nice group shot of all of the girls together in the room. My wife and I positioned the amps so that they would make good props. Then we asked for some cool looking guitars and I fired away.

When we were done shooting the group shots, we had completed the "job" but I thought that it would be fun to get individual shots of each of the girls. Here I positioned the subject so that her glasses would reflect the wall of guitars (and not the photographer!).

And then my wife (the creative director) had the great idea of having the girl throw her head back to give us that rocker hair. Fun stuff!

And so we continued...shooting different images of each girl.

Of all the "rocker hair shots" this was my favorite. I love her expression and the way that her hair is flying up but not covering her face.

All of these pretty girls help make the photographer look good. And all of them were so nice and had so much fun with us.

More rocker attitude!

If you know me, you know that I will try anything for a good shot. Here I asked Tracey to join her daughter, Kennedy, for a mother daughter shot. As you can tell, Tracey has no shortage of personality!

Here is Kennedy giving me her "senior" pose, guitar in hand.

I am always trying to break out of my "rigid mold" and in doing so, I am trying to shoot more images that are not perfectly straight.

Here I rotated the camera to match the line of the guitar, not worrying about lines of the background. It adds a different dimension to the images, and since these are supposed to be a little more edgy, I think it works well.

Photographing these girls was a lot of fun for all of us. My wife and I liked the fact that we could help out a worthy cause. The parents had fun watching their kids ham it up for the camera. But most importantly, the girls liked being models for a day.