FAVORITE PICTURES OF THE YEAR--
Part 1

Sports photography crossed my plate for the first time in years this summer when I became an adopted grand pa of Sue's grand daughter, Mackenna Curtis Collins.  She is an outstanding athlete and excels at both soccer and cross country running.

In this photo she is defending against overwhelming force from a much larger opponent.  An exposure of 1/1,300 of a second at f/2.8 with a 200 mm lens was sufficient to stop the action yet give nice exposure under back-lit conditions.  Sensitivity was ISO 100.  The long lens and wide aperture helped shallow the depth of field and confine sharpness to the athletes.

Here she digs deeply but had to settle for 2nd place, to an obviously larger opponent, at the finish line of this cross country race.  Exposure data was identical to the first photo but focus was done manually to keep Mackenna rendered sharply.  She wound up taking top honors at her school for her personal race results in her first year at the junior high.

This is the Honey Run waterfall in Knox County.  My Canon Rebel T3i, digital single-lens reflex camera was propped on a sloping rock and leveled with my pocket knife and the lens cap for a make-shift tripod.  The camera had to be held still for the relatively long exposure of 1/4 second which rendered the flowing water in silk-like wisps.  Remember, you can click on these images to see a larger view.

While the back-lighting was dramatic on these dogwood leaves it is the magic of Photoshop software that is responsible for the pressed-in-wax flavor of this composition shot on my upper deck.  The surface of the out-of-focus pond is responsible for the blue background color.  Software certainly adds a stunning, creative tool to digital photography, but, every other photo in this year's series could have been done with film.

   

This was a spontaneous photo done at a fund-raising event's registration.  It made me sympathetic to the little person's shy expression while I envisioned the ample protection surrounding her with an admitted sense of mirth.

Sue Brooks takes a peek at the moon through the large telescope at the Warren Rupp Observatory at Hidden Hollow Camp during one of their monthly public, viewing nights.  I am thankful for the cooperative assistance of the scope's operator for aligning the observatory's roof opening for my composition while both he and several observers at a time were hoisted about 10 feet above floor level so they could see in the eyepiece.

My oldest son Brian enjoys a relaxing cast into the sunset at Charles Mill Lake from the deck of their newly acquired pontoon boat.  This simply is a nice photo from one of those special events life provides from time to time.  Can you see the two dark parts of his spinner bait in mid-flight?

This series will conclude with seven more images Saturday, December 31st.