winter wonderland

I love winter. I really do. It's the season of cold, and snow, and ice, and all of these things mean that skating season is in full force, which I love more than anything. I love photographing kids in the snow, but when it's the day after Christmas, and the windchill is -40, I learned that my limit for standing at the bottom of a sledding hill with my camera is 30 minutes. Then I have to leave, before I get really cranky, and before my fingers freeze, break off, and make me drop my precious camera.

These were taken at the aforementioned day-after-Christmas outing with my 20D and my 200mm lens. My mom stood next me and I helped her with the settings on her point-and-shoot. It was a good time, and I'm pretty happy with my pictures. I had the camera on manual mode, and I played with the settings for the first few minutes, landing on 1/400, f/10, ISO 400. I probably could have gone down an f-stop, since I had to brighten them a little, but it was a decent effort.


Bradley, the snowboard champ! Look at how pro he looks with his hands out for a bit of balance, but not so far out as to be uncool.


Kristin gets a push down the steep side of the hill from Daddy.


Kristin goes for a spin on the snow saucer, giggling as it turns to a stop at the bottom of the hill.


Danielle discovered that she preferred the sled with the brakes, but she was still quite brave for following the big kids down the hill!


Close-up of Bradley after a successful run. Note the super-cool transition shades!

Next up: Insanity begins as I try to condense my trip to Vancouver to cover the 2008 Canadian Figure Skating Championships into just a few posts. Eek!