challenge me this

In December, I covered some of Skate Canada's Challenges for ice-dance.com, which are Canada's version of U.S. Figure Skating's sectionals, which I covered two entries before this one. Like the USFS sectionals, Challenge is the qualifying event for the national championships in Canada. There are all kinds of complicated formulas to decide who gets to go to nationals, so I won't bore you with that. The point is that I took some sweet photos, and at this event, I finally embraced the manual setting mode on my Canon 20D. I also figured out how to use it, which led to the embrace of it. Since Canada holds all of its Challenge events for the entire country in one place, over five days, the younger kids generally get tossed into these really tragically-lit rinks, and since I was covering all of the dance events that I could for IDC, I had to deal with some really tragic lighting. Some experiments worked out better than others.

I've got ten photos I want to share from this event, so grab a snack if you think you might need one and get comfortable. You know how I get when I start talking about skating.


I had a presentation at school in the afternoon in Michigan, so I left right from school for Mississauga, ON, where the event was being held. The goal: get to the arena in time for Siobhan & Kevin's original dance. This photo: Siobhan Karam & Kevin O'Keefe's original dance. Success! Their Irish folk dance to music from "Lord of the Dance" has been one of my favourite ODs of the season. This dress is also magical. Trust me. It's amazing. Siobhan & Kevin ended up winning the senior dance event, which obviously qualified them for the Canadian Championships. Oh, and this was when I was having serious issues with the settings on my camera and before I learned how to put it in manual mode, so...I almost don't want to write the numbers, but I will, with the disclaimer that this is not how you take good skating photos! 1/400, f/5.6, ISO 1600.


Alexandra Paul & Jason Cheperdak finished 1st in novice dance at Western Challenge, sending them to nationals. Their free dance was one of the big surprises of the weekend for me - I wasn't expecting a novice team to be that good! This photo, however, is from their Starlight Waltz compulsory dance. When shooting a bunch of compulsory dances in a row, when every team does the same steps, I like to challenge myself to get a specific shot that might happen quickly or be at an odd angle. For the Starlight Waltz, I kept trying to get this shot. Alexandra & Jason's turned out the best, despite being in a tragically-lit rink. 1/320, f/2.8, ISO 1600.


Pairs are difficult for me to shoot, since they're often not as close together as dancers, and since I have the most practice with dance. The only pairs event I caught at Challenge was the senior free program, and this is Meagan Duhamel & Craig Buntin, who finished first. They'd already been given a bye to nationals, but they chose to compete here as a test-run for nationals. Their strategy paid off - they finished 3rd at nationals and were named to the team heading to the World Championships this month. This photo is of their spiral sequence. Craig probably has the best spiral position of all the male pairs skaters in the world. 1/500, f/2.8, ISO 800.


I love playing around with close-ups when shooting skating. The traditional skating photo has all hands and all skates in it, but since I'm usually working with a fixed 200mm lens, this is not always possible, so I've learned to love my close-ups. This is from Myriane Samson's free program to Memoirs from a Geisha. I just love the fanning. Myriane finished sixth here, which gave her a chance to compete at nationals. 1/400, f/2.8, ISO 800. MANUAL MODE yessss!


Dylan Moscovitch's free program is a hoot and kind of brilliant. It spoofs a lot of well-known skaters, and he keeps the crowd laughing while managing to hit some triple jumps. He narrowly missed qualifying for nationals in singles, but he did get to go in the pairs event, where he skates with his younger sister. The standing ovation for this "Robin Hood" program began about 20 seconds before it was even over. 1/320, f/2.8, ISO 800.


Fedor Andreev is a national medalist, but he retired from competitive skating in 2005 to concentrate on things like modeling and racing fast cars in Hong Kong, or something. When it was announced that he was making a comeback this year, very few took him seriously - we'd heard similar rumours before. But when he showed up at Challenge with clean triple Axels and passion in his performance, I was glad that the rumours turned out to be true. He won this event by 15 points. 1/320, f/2.8, ISO 800.


Since I was covering this for IDC, I did a lot of running between rinks at the Hershey Centre. In fact, I only watched half of Fedor's program, and then I sprinted back to the smaller rinks at the opposite end of the building to continue photographing the pre-novice free dance. Pilar & Leonardo Maekawa skated pretty well, but the important thing is that she gets this fabulous swirl effect with her skirt when they hit their final pose. 1/320, f/2.8, ISO 800. Heavily photoshopped, because I forgot to change the ISO for the small, tragically-lit rink when I sprinted back from the main arena.


Okay, this was the #1 surprise of the weekend. Michaela & Scott Botsford are a pre-novice dance team, and pre-novice free dances are not supposed to be this creative, or interesting, or set to music like "Ramalama" by Roisin Murphy. This was awesome. 1/320, f/2.8, ISO 1600.


And one more photo from the pre-novice free dance! Sarah Aghai & Peter Ahluwalia jumped from fifth to second with this modern tango free dance. I just love their smiles here - it was obvious that they knew that they were skating their best. 1/320, f/2.8, ISO 1600.


The last event that I watched was the senior free dance, which was a lot of fun. Lauren Senft & Augie Hill's free dance to music from Chicago was fun and sassy, and it secured third place for them. I just really wanted to post a photo of them, because Lauren is always so sweet when we see her at events. 1/400, f/2.8, ISO 800.

And if you are dying for more photos or would like to read more technical analyses of the events, they're here.

Next time: cute kids!

san francisco times seven

Thanks to the Global Deejays' remix of "Sounds of San Francisco," every time I say, "San Francisco," I say it like, "San! Fran! Cisco!" Listen to the song if you don't understand. Trust me - your life will never be the same.

For Thanksgiving, my mom and I went to San Francisco. She said it was because she'd wanted to take a vacation during the summer, but I was too busy, and she didn't want to go by herself. I think it was partially because she wanted to get out of making a Thanksgiving meal when there were only three of us. My stepdad decided to stay home, and had Thanksgiving dinner with his son & his family, so it was just Mom and I for the trip. I love travelling with Mom. I get all of my nerdy travelophile genes from her, so we generally want to see the same things, and she doesn't mind that I try to pack in as many things as possible.

This trip was a photographic learning experience for both of us. I helped my mom buy her first digital camera over the summer, a respectable model of the point & shoot variety, but she'd barely taken it out of the box by November. I ended up giving her a crash course on the Civic Center plaza in San Francisco on Thanksgiving morning. This was also a learning experience for me, because it was the first time I took my DSLR on vacation. The results were a bit disappointing, but I did learn some things, and I was able to touch up my shots with Photoshop, so I feel better about the experience now. The most important thing I learned is that I'm never visiting a photogenic city like San Francisco again without a shorter lens than my fixed 50mm. So for future vacations, I'll probably plunk down the cash to rent a wide-angle lens if I don't have one of my own. But for now, on to the photos!


We arrived in San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving. Our first order of business, after checking into our downtown hotel, was to buy a bus/streetcar/cable car pass. We decided to eat in North Beach, where there were supposed to be some great Italian restaurants, and we got there by way of taking the streetcar to Fisherman's Wharf, where I snapped this photo. I'm not sure if we just picked a mediocre restaurant, but I've had much better Italian food in Chicago. Thankfully, that was our only mediocre meal of the whole trip. 1/40, f/1.8, ISO 1600.


On Thanksgiving, we decided to do as much "outside" sightseeing as possible, since most places were not open. I read in our trusty AAA guidebook that the City Hall in SF is modeled after Les Invalides in Paris, and sure enough, it was! I'm not sure what's with the weird trees in front. I meant to research that when we got back to the hotel that evening, but we never got the internet working in our room. 1/400, f/8, ISO 100.


AAA Guidebook told us that the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park would be open on Thanksgiving, but AAA Guidebook lied. I'm glad this photo ended up being one of my favourites from the trip, or I would have been angry. 1/400, f/8, ISO 100.


The trip to Golden Gate Park wasn't a complete bust, however, since the Japanese Tea Garden was open. It's even open on Christmas, apparently. It was a bit smaller than I anticipated, but it was beautiful, and I got quite a few great photos. I also took some not-so-great photos, but that's all part of the learning process, right? 1/400, f/7.1, ISO 400.


I snapped this while we were walking around Chinatown. It was painted on the side of an elementary school, and I thought it was hilarious. That's all. 1/160, f/3.5, ISO 400.


My mom and I agreed that our favourite place in San Francisco was the old Mission. This is the carving(?) that is above the altar in the small chapel. We also loved our visit to the Mission district because of the lunch we had there. As we were leaving the Mission, my mom commented that there would probably be great Mexican food in the neighbourhood, but it was hard to know where to go. I suggested that we go back inside the Mission and ask where they like to eat. The woman at the desk recommended Pancho Villa Taqueria, and it was fantastic. It was just your simple taqueria. We had fish tacos, which we often get at Baja Fresh in Chicago, but this was obviously a touch more authentic. The ingredients here were so fresh, and it was ridiculously cheap. They also had fresh juices and top-notch horchata. 1/60, f/2, ISO 800.


What's a trip to San Francisco without 923842398 photos of the Golden Gate Bridge, or "GGB," as I started calling it. My mom doesn't share my propensity for abbreviating things, so she was a bit confused. I took this from Lincoln Park, outside of the art museum, not long after my mom sprained my ankle running for the bus. I admit that I left her sitting on a bench while I trotted down a path to look for this shot. Don't worry - I promised her a copy. You know, I am scared to death of boats, but I would love to be on one of those sailboats under the bridge. With a wide-angle lens. Definitely with a wide-angle lens. 1/250, f/14, ISO 200.

Up next: Another skating competition!

midwestern sectionals

It's been a long time since I've posted anything in here. I'm not sure if anyone will ever remember to check this again, but I suppose that's my own fault. As promised from the last entry, here are some photos from the U.S. Midwestern Sectional Championships. They're from last November. I'm a bit behind.

Explanation for non-skating fans: "Mids" is one of three sectional championships in the U.S. The top skaters from three different regions (Upper Great Lakes, Eastern Great Lakes, and Southwestern) compete at Mids, and then the top four in each event at Mids advance to the National Championships. As you can imagine, the stakes are high for some of the skaters. For some, a season's goal is just to make it to Mids, but for many others, the rest of the season depends on making it through this competition.

I'd never been to a sectional before, but I really enjoyed it. I covered the event for ice-dance.com, and you can read my reports and see some more of my photos here, if you're interested.


Piper Gilles & Tim McKernan were 2nd in junior dance, and went on to finish 2nd in junior dance at Nationals in January. This photo is from the first few seconds of their free dance to "Cinderella." I'm usually not a fan of white costumes against white ice, but these are perfect for "Cinderella." 1/400, f/3.2, ISO 800.


Maia & Alex Shibutani, had a fantastic competition at this event, finishing 3rd in junior dance. They were thrilled just to meet their goal of qualifying for Nationals, and ended up finishing 4th there. This photo is from their free dance to piano music by Jean-Marie Senia. It was a mature choice for such a young team, but they made it work beautifully. The interview that I did with them after their free dance was one of my best interviews of the event (which was my first event where I did interviews, so most of them were pretty bad). 1/400, f/2.8, ISO 800.


You can't tell from this photo, but Mauri Gustafson & Joel Dear had a sweet hip-hop free dance. I thought that they skated really well in all portions of the competition, and they finished a strong 2nd in senior dance. While this photo doesn't capture the hip-hop flava of the dance, it is pretty sweet. 1/400, f/2.8, ISO 800.


Rohene Ward, sometimes more well-known for his inconsistency than for his incredible ability, put down a solid free program to finish 2nd in senior men, qualifying for Nationals in his hometown. Sometimes, taking a great picture, for me, is about capturing a split second that summarizes an entire program. 1/400, f/3.2, ISO 800.


Juliana Bilowus finished 10th in senior ladies, but you wouldn't know it from this photo. She skated with attack and was obviously very happy with her efforts. Unfortunately, many of her jumps were downgraded, so she didn't get the points that she needed to qualify for Nationals. Sometimes, taking a great picture, is about capturing a unique moment, or creating a memory before the situation changes. 1/400, f/2.8, ISO 800.

Next up: highlights from San Francisco!

hills of the irish kind

Goodness sakes. It's December 21st and this is my first post of the month. Things have been busy, to say the least. I finished my penultimate semester of my undergraduate degree, earning a 3.9 cumulatively in my 24 glorious credits. I'm never taking a legitimate double course-load again. What was I think when I signed up for that?!

Today's photoblog installment is from November 10. Jules, my best friend, and I went to the Irish Hills in southeastern Michigan. It's an area that was settled by many Irish immigrants, allegedly, because the rolling green hills reminded them of their home country. She's always wanted to go, and I'm always up for seeing something new, so we took a free Saturday and made the short trip. We were surprised at how kitschy-touristy it was. Most of the souvenir shops and "attractions" were closed, but I felt like we'd driven into a 1960s family vacation, complete with a giant statue of Paul Bunyan (not pictured) and wooden buildings labeled "saloon" and whatnot.

The area (as pictured) was beautiful. We first stopped at Wamplers Lake in Walter J. Hayes State Park, and then drove east on US-12 until we reached St. Joseph's Church, situated on the south bank of Iron Lake, and home to a memorial to the Irish Potato Famine. The experience marked an important step in my photographic experiments as I saw the advantage of using higher numbered f-stops for large subjects, like landscapes. It was cloudy, so I couldn't use the really high numbers without compromising ISO, but I was able to try shooting on 8 and 11. Since I'd mostly done sports photography with the camera up until this point, this was new and exciting for me.


Wamplers Lake in the State Park. 1/200, f/11, ISO 200.


Wamplers Lake. Jules and I had to laugh about the swan, because we had a hilarious experience with swans in Toronto in July. I'll share that story sometime. My short story about it is going to be published in my school's literary magazine this spring. 1/250, f/11, ISO 200.


Memorial to the Irish Potato Famine at St. Joseph's Church on US-12, east of Cambridge Junction, MI. 1/60, f/8, ISO 200.


Iron Lake behind St. Joseph's Church. I love the way that the sky was reflected in the lake. It was such a beautiful day. 1/80, f/8, ISO 200.


Iron Lake. I would love to live here, for about a weekend, and then I would start missing stoplights and convenience stores and highways. But it sure is pretty. 1/100, f/8, ISO 200.

Next up: probably another skating event, and then my trip to San Francisco.

michigan of the lake variety

I am so behind in photoblogging. My best friend, Emilie, updates her blog more than I do, and she's in Lesotho, without any regular internet access. Of course, Emilie is also talking to actual people when she blogs, people she will not see again until early 2010 at best. I am talking to myself. Of course, since I drive over an hour every day to commute to school and back, I talk to myself quite a bit. This is nothing new; it's just with pictures.

A few weeks ago, on my way back to Lansing from Chicago, I decided that I wanted to take photos of Lake Michigan. I got off of I-94 in southwestern Michigan and drove towards the lake. I ended up in one of those private, rustic communities, but rustic in the sense that they have a lot of "TOP SECRET PRIVATE DRIVEWAY" type of signs and strategically-placed fences, so you can't glimpse the lake for anything. I thought about hopping a fence, since most of the houses looked empty, but decided to just drive a bit further north in search of a public lake viewing area. I stumbled upon Warren Dunes State Park, a favourite weekend destination of many a Chicago-based youth group, including mine. I think I only went on the trip once, though. I'm not a big beach person. I am, however, big on photographing big lakes.


Big lake with little waves, taken while crouching down so waves look bigger. A little bigger. Maybe.


This probably breaks some rule of basic photography, but I love taking pictures of water into the sun. I love the glare.


Not the best picture in the world of a dune, but probably not the worst either. The small dots in the middle are cute kids that kept climbing up them just so they could run down. I don't think I ever had that kind of energy.

I've been a busy bee lately. I have photos from the Irish Hills to post, as well as ones from my Thanksgiving-break trip to San Francisco. I might post a few more skating ones in the near future, too.

best friends for life

Yesterday, Emilie left for Lesotho. She just began service in the Peace Corps. She'll be back in spring 2010. Lesotho, for those not aware, is a landlocked country right in the middle of South Africa. Yep, it's surrounded completely by South Africa - like a little cut-out in the middle of the country. It's far. It's also not the easiest place to get to. I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that I will only see Em once, at most, in the next two years and four months.

I vaguely remember meeting Em when I was young...maybe about 9 years old, or so. My stepdad was her parents' realtor. We knew them from church, but I knew her brother better, since he was in my grade. I was with my stepdad once when he needed to run by their house, and I think I played Barbies with Emilie. She was nice, but she was two grades younger than me, and that's a big deal when you're 9. Fast forward to summer 2000, after my junior year of high school.

Although I grew up in my church, I kind of missed the friends bus for a while. I had a couple of wonderful friends, but we kind of kept to ourselves, and I didn't feel like I fit in with a lot of the other kids in my youth group. In July 2000, a group of us went to a conference in Minnesota. Barbie, my best friend since 4th grade, was going, but there was a slight problem with the rooms - they were quadruples. My youth pastor and his wife were making the room assignment list, and they weren't sure what to do with Barbie and me. They ended up putting us with a couple of girls that they thought we'd get along with, even though they were two years behind us in school - Emilie and Trulie.

Em, Tru, Barbie, and I became a foursome that week. We clung to each other over the next year, until Barbie and I graduated and went away to school, but Em and Tru were two true friends and we kept in touch. Emilie was the first person to see my ring when I got engaged the next summer. She came to visit me in Miami during her senior year. I surprised her at her dorm twice - once in 2003, once in 2004.

I don't know exactly when, but sometime in there, I realized that she'd become one of my best friends. There's not anything that I can't say to her, nothing that she wouldn't understand. There have been some parallel events in our lives, giving us a shared perspective on our experiences and on faith. We're not all alike, though, and that is why she is suited for her Peace Corps placement in southern Africa, and I am not.

I'm going to have to kick it old school with the letter writing. She will probably have limited access to email, but she's not sure yet. And she might even be able to get a cell phone, so maybe I can explore this Skype thing that I hear about so often. I kind of dropped the ball when she did a study abroad semester in France, and I still feel terrible about my communication issues. I'm actually working on a Post-It note system to keep up with my letters to her, and I'm even thinking of patenting it if all goes well.

She left Chicago on November 5. I went home the last weekend of October, since it was her birthday weekend, and I had a day off for "fall break," which is really code for "Emilie's birthday, observed." We watched some of our favourite episodes of The Office, saw the latest Reese Witherspoon movie, went out for some of the best sushi I have ever had, and avoided saying goodbye at all costs. We tried, before I left to drive back to Michigan, but I kept laughing, and then I was crying, and it was too hard, so we said that we'd talk on the phone before she left. We talked a little on Monday night this week, but again, I couldn't let her say goodbye. It wasn't until she called yesterday, from the airport, that goodbye became necessary.

How do I get upset with someone for wanting to make the world a better place? How do I feel sorry for myself when my best friend is taking an extended leave of absence from the continent to join the Peace Corps? Is it acceptable to be upset that Gilmore Girls Season 7 is coming out next week, but I won't be able to watch it with her for over two years? How do I get upset over a television show when she's going to be teaching math to kids in Lesotho? How do I say goodbye to my best friend?

I just cry. That's all.

I'll get used to it, right? After a while? Of course I will.

Homecoming

Well, I have this camera, right? And I have a lens that makes pretty figure skating photos. And...football is kind of like figure skating, right? I mean, they're both sports, and sometimes people were bright colours, but sometimes people wear white. And they...go fast. And a football field is big, like an ice rink. Okay, okay. I'm reaching. But I figured that I'd give football photography a shot, so I showed up at my school's Homecoming game a few weeks ago.

After a few shots, I quickly realized that football is not equal to figure skating. It's more difficult to shoot a sport that I don't know as well, but at least the years I spent at the University of Miami gave me a basic understanding of the game.

Shooting our game was fun. With the length of my lens, I knew I needed to be in the stands, so I spent most of the game perched on one of the stairs, getting jostled by people making nachos runs, which led to me craving my own nachos. Something about being in a crowd of people makes me go crazy for processed cheese. I can't explain it.


This was my favourite shot of the game. A return on an interception led to Olivet's first touchdown in the second quarter, and I was at a great angle to capture it.


People always tell me to remember that there are other people at a sporting event besides the athletes. I wasn't crazy about my crowd shots, but I did get some good ones of the cheerleaders. The one on the right is Natalie, a fellow English major, and a super sweet girl.


This guy was chosen as the MIAA's player of the week, or something like that. He rushed for a lot of yards, I think. This photo that I took of him, from late in the game, was featured prominently on the back page of the school paper.


I love this lens, seriously. Even from all the way in the stands, I can get definition of a player's muscles.

Olivet won the game, 21-14, which gave us the lead in the MIAA standings. We lost the game two weekends ago, but won last weekend, which put us in a three-way tie for #1 again. The last game of the season is this Saturday, and I have no idea what happens if we win and if Alma and Hope also win their games. I think all three of us has lost to one of the others, but not both. I think Division 3 has playoffs, unlike Division 1, but I could be wrong about that, too. Go Comets!

More sports photography to come!