Fun at the Game

When I went to to Blues hockey game over the weekend, I knew that the theme at Where’s My Backpack? is yellow this week.  The St. Louis Blues colors are blue and yellow, so I thought maybe I would have some fun with that.  Here is a photo that I cam up with:

ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/50

I took this photo with my point and shoot when Louie dropped by our section.  I had set the camera to color accent, with yellow as the chosen accent color.  When I got home I edited this in Photoshop.  I went to Filter-Blur-Iris Blur.  When you are using that filter you can pick what you want in focus and then blur the rest as much as you would like.

Just a quick snapshot of a fun weekend outing, but what do you think of my editing? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

So What Does That Say About Me?

I spend a lot of time watching hockey.  Yesterday it was two live games.  One featuring my hockey child and one NHL game.  At the level my hockey child plays, there is no fighting.  The NHL is a different story, here is a shot from yesterday’s game:

ISO 500 22mm 0ev f/5.9 1/100

I shot this photo using my point and shoot and then left it unedited, just a snapshot from a game.

I love watching hockey, and I don’t mind a good fight that works with the flow of the game.  I’m not a fan of fighting that breaks up the flow of the game.  How complicated of me. Allowing fighting in games is a hot topic of discussion among fans, and I have to say if they got rid of it in the NHL, I would still watch.

But what does it say about me that I think fighting can be a good part of the game? Something for me to think about as I write this post in response to the WordPress Photo Challenge, “Selfie”.

Have a thought about this post? feel free to leave a comment below, but no need to drop the gloves, this a “no fighting” blog.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Family

Here is a photo of a family I am part of:

ISO 2500 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/100

Like a lot of families, my hockey family has its ups and downs.  This shot I took to include my extended family, that is the folks who are with the opposing team.  While we might not all agree on things for the hour that the game is on, we are all part of the bigger hockey family.

This photo was a bit hard to get properly because I had my camera set to take photos on the ice which is very different lighting than the stands.  I wrote recently about how I set up for photos like that.  So, I took this shot knowing that it would be too dark and the white balance would be off, but because I wanted to get this quick shot and then get back to shooting the game, I left my settings where they were.

Now, a few days later, I opened the photo in Photoshop.  Because I shot this photo in RAW, I first edited it in Camera Raw.  I used the eye dropper to make a white balance adjustment, I also increased the exposure, lightened both the blacks and shadows, and increased the clarity.  Then I opened that version in Photoshop.  From there I did a levels adjustment, cropped the photo, and sharpened it.  So, I made several adjustments from the original, which I will show below, but like I said, I knew what I was in for when I took the photo.

ISO 2500 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/100

So, that is my hockey family, you can see they are a bit preoccupied at the moment.  What do you think of my edits?

Cheers!

Who is Luckier?

So, who is luckier?, the kid who gets to play hockey or the parents who get to watch?

ISO 2500 50mm 0ev f/7.1 1/250

It’s a toss up I would say.

This photo I took at a game this morning.  I’ll show you the original in a moment.  When I take hockey photos, I always start with the white balance on Auto and take a photo of the rink.  Then I use that photo to set the Custom white balance in the camera.  That works in helping set the white balance correctly.  Given the conditions of the rink, I always have a high ISO and fast shutter speed.

When I get the photos on my computer, I open up Photoshop.  I shoot in RAW, so first I open the photo in Camera Raw and do a white balance adjustment.  Then I open the photo into Photoshop and do any cropping that I want.  Sometimes I also do a levels adjustment, although on this photo I did not.  Then I sharpen the photo.  From there I convert my RAW photo to a JPEG.  I make it into a JPEG because that makes it easier to share with other parents on the team.

Here is the original:

ISO 2500 50mm 0ev f/7.1 1/250

So, what do you think? who is luckier? What do you think of my adjustments and workflow?

Written in response to the Daily Post prompt: The Luckiest People

Cheers!

 

Window on my Weekend

The theme for this week’s WordPress photo challenge is window.  I spent the weekend at the hockey rink.  My little hockey player had a series of out of town games, so three games in less than 24 hours.  If you play hockey you know that is a lot of ice time.  I watch and take photos from behind the glass.  It look a little while for it to occur to me that I could create a photo that would fit this challenge while I was at the rink.  So here is the scoreboard midway through the third game:

ISO 2500 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/320

Ouch, not a good game for the home team, we would end up winning 11-4, which is not a typical score in hockey.  My little hockey player’s team won all three games, which is nice, but the first two games were actually more interesting in terms of actual hockey and the scores were a bit closer.

This photo above is a panorama.  I created it out of three photos in Photoshop.  From where I was standing it was not possible to get the whole scoreboard in the frame. So, I shot three separate frames, making sure to have enough overlap so that Photoshop would be able to piece them together.  In Photoshop I went to File-Automate-Photomerge and just used the presets to create the image.  From there I cropped and straightened the photo.  Looking at it now, I think it could have used a white balance correction.

This is week two of the Weekly Photo Challenge for this year.  Last week I was reading the entry for “Beginning” by Cardinal Guzman, and he had created widgets to use that would allow a blogger to collect photo challenge posts all in one place.  The link I provided will take you to see his creations, one of which I am using in the right hand column of my blog. I would like to thank him for sharing and encourage you to visit his blog if you are interested.

So what do you think of my panorama? Are you a hockey fan?  If you have never seen a game I would encourage you to give it a try.  Check your local rink for a free game!

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Community

A group of children wait for their shift during a hockey game at a community ice rink:

ISO 3200 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/100

Taking hockey photos can be a challenge.  In this case, there is a bit of a twist because it was also outdoors at night.  In order to get this photo I had to bump up my ISO to allow for a quick shutter speed to capture the movement of the game.  Also, I had to wear several layers of clothing, because it was cold!  Other than some cropping and sharpening this photo is as it was out of the camera.

Recreation centers provide a lot to the local community.  They can mean different things to different people.  This center for example, has swim lessons, but to my family it is one of the local hockey rinks.  The photo challenge this week at WordPress is community and it is interesting to see all the different ways people think about community. Another community that I am part of is this blogging community. I appreciate my readers and enjoy talking to people who leave comments or whose blogs I visit.  A few days ago I wrote about a change I made to my blog and about changing my theme.  If you would like to take a look and leave a comment about my changes, the post is here.

How about you? Do you use a local recreation center? have you ever watched a youth hockey game? they are a lot of fun, so you should consider dropping by if you never have.  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Thinking about White Balance Settings

Having a strategy regarding how you use your white balance settings in your camera can be a good way to insure that you get the photo you want later.  Many, but not all, cameras give you options, and being aware of when to take advantage of those options can save you some time in your post editing process.  I think it is worth the time to look through the manual of your camera and think about how you might use the different settings.  Today, I am going to talk about the two options I use most frequently, auto and custom.

Here is my defense of auto white balance, and when I say defense I say that because almost every photographer is made to feel like using an auto version of anything on their camera makes them less of a “real” photographer.  So, here it goes, my auto white balance setting works pretty well.  That’s the short version.  The longer version is that pretty much any photo I am taking for my artistic work I am going to at least consider changing the white balance in my post editing process.  Auto tends to give me a good solid starting point.  This photo was taken with the white balance set to auto:

ISO 400 160mm 0ev f/5.6 1/400

Custom white balance is a setting I use all the time when I am taking photos inside ice arenas.  I spend a lot of time shooting hockey games.  When I started using custom white balance in those situations, I used a grey card.  I would prop it up on the side of the glass and take a photo of it.  My camera then allows me to choose that photo and use it to set the white balance setting of other photos from it.  That worked pretty well.  Then it was suggested to me that I try and shoot a photo of the ice and use that photo as a base for my white balance settings.  I like the way that works, here is an example:

ISO 2500 0ev f/1.8 1/2000

This isn’t such a great photograph, but you can see detail in both the white and blacks of the uniform, and that is because the white balance here is set pretty well.  If you have ever shot in a hockey arena, you know the lighting is horrible and that getting a good exposure can be pretty tough.  Having your white balance set properly is a step in the right direction.

How about you? do you have a white balance setting you use frequently? maybe you don’t consider white balance at all?  Feel free to leave a comment below, and if you have written a blog post about it, feel free to leave a link.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Infinite

If you have ever been to a youth hockey game, or any other youth sport for that matter, you will already know that the possibilities for what might happen are pretty much infinite.  Infinite is the theme over at the photo challenge hosted by WordPress, so I thought I would use this image I have been working on to fit in with the theme:

Panorama of a hockey arena

This is a panorama that I created in Photoshop.  This is a very small version of it.  The full sized version is 42″ long and 9″ wide.  I’ll chat a bit about how I shot it and then how I created this final version.

First thing to know, I think, for any panorama, is that when you are shooting it, it is best to use a tripod or some flat surface.  The second thing is to remember that your software will need overlap in the photos in order to put them together.  The third thing is to take a lot of photos.  When I shot this, I shot it in three layers; the windows and benches, the ice, and then the ice and stands.  Even with all these photos, there were some gaps that I had to contend with later in the editing process.

To edit, I started with all my images in Photoshop’s Bridge program.  If you have Bridge, the workflow is this: Choose photos then Tools-Photoshop-Photomerge.  It will then give you a few options of what type of panorama you would like to create, in this case I am using the auto setting.

Then… well I’d like to tell you that a beautiful panorama appeared on my screen.  That would be a lie.  I had to reselect different photos, and try a couple different times before the photo that I had in mind appeared on my screen.  The different lines on the ice seemed to really confuse the program.  However, I did eventually get a good working copy.

It needed some work though.  In the original panorama, there were still some missing spaces.  Those turned up as just white.  Since I knew I was going to be creating another background, I selected all the white areas and made them orange.  In Photoshop I used the magic wand to select the white then did an edit-fill with the orange.  Why orange you might ask?  This arena that I shot is the home arena for a team whose colors are blue and orange.  When I tried blue in the white space, it made the image to dark, orange seemed to brighten it a bit.

Then I made a scan of a jersey of the home team.  That is the background that you see.  I edited and positioned the jersey, to make part of the logo appear to be on the ice.

Creating this image took quite a bit of time and experimenting.  I think though that simple panoramas of a scene can be easily put together.  There are many editing software programs that can help you with the actual editing, but the tips above on shooting the scene in the first place can apply to any scenario, regardless of your editing software.

So, what do you think of the panorama?  Do you shoot them yourself and have any tips? Do you have a blog post you would like to share of your own panorama work?  Feel free to leave your comments below.

Cheers!

Black and White Weekly Photo Challenge: Abstract

In case you were wondering, hockey team evaluations start in just a few weeks.  So, my young player, who plays in the fall season (Sept-March) only, is back on the ice getting ready for the season:

ISO 1000 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/15

Because I knew I was shooting this photo with the theme of abstract in mind, I used a slow shutter speed, purposely blurring the skater.  Even though this is my skater, I wanted it to really represent any skater that might be getting ready for the upcoming season.  The tricky thing with a deliberate blur is that things can easily get too blurry.  So, I picked an f-stop of f/5.6 and focused on the skater’s face.  I didn’t want the face details to be precise, just good enough for the viewer to be sure it is a face.  You may notice that the ISO is on 1000.  If you have never shot inside an ice rink before, be prepared to bump your ISO way up.  Lighting in ice rinks is almost always poor in terms of getting good pictures.

This photo was edited in Photoshop.  I chose the “infrared” setting from the black and white settings because of all the settings, it retained the most texture in the photo.  Because the skater is slightly out of focus, I think that texture is important in this photo.  In order to emphasize the texture, I then sharpened the image.  This image has also been cropped.

Are you ready for the hockey season? we are in this household! Thoughts about the photo? feel free to leave them below.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: (Moving) Forward

Warning: this post was written by an American who loves hockey.  Who knew eh?  To my regular readers who don’t love hockey feel free to skip this post or just scroll down and hit “like” 🙂 My typical style posts will be return next time. Thank you!

When I saw that the weekly photo challenge at WordPress this week was forward, I was a bit stumped.  Then I got a phone call.  It was a neighbor.  They have four tickets and a parking pass to the St. Louis Blues game on Saturday, we can have them if we can go.  So, it was decision time.  On one hand it is a no brainer, we in this household love hockey. The seats are in the “you can actually see the players” section.  Yes, we are going.  On the other hand, we are not really over the lockout.  I love hockey but not the NHL, which is problematic.

I love this game, so I am moving forward (sort of) from the lockout.  The bottom line is though, I’m not a fan of the NHL. I don’t appreciate the way the lockout was handled.  This season we have enjoyed our hockey at local arenas.  We are happy to hear that the St. Charles Chill will be the new team in town as of next season.  We are excited to check them out.

Got some pretty good shots from last night though:

The Scoreboard before the game.

Halak warming up.

A face-off in front of the home team net.

So. IL Ice Hawks Mite level play the intermission.

Blues win 2-1! and salute the fans

If you are a hockey fan, how are you feeling about the lockout these days? feel free to leave a comment.  If you are a blogger, who has written about it, leave a link to your post if you like.

Cheers!