yay dance pictures :) I realized that I forgot to do a blog post the last two weeks :/ hopefully it's not a big deal. but these are all the dance pictures I edited, not all the ones I took - I took like hundreds. but the stage lighting was difficult to work with. anyways, everyone really liked them though and they used them in the slideshow and everything - yay

So I'm not sure if we were expected to have a post this week. Sadly, even if I did have pictures I wouldn't have the software to put them here. I wanted to take pictures at Thanksgiving but there weren't many opportunities, I decided I'd rather join in the festivities than photograph them. But I decided Christmas will be better because it's at my house and whatnot. But Thanksgiving was good, New Jersey was good. I will be back at school Sunday so that's positive. I still have a horrible cough unfortunately but they said that can last up to two weeks after the sickness is gone. But yup. Hopefully everyone had a nice Thanksgiving and a good break. Sadly, even though my break was extended - it didn't feel like a break at all. My real break didn't even feel relaxing. But there are only 2 more weeks of classes, finals and then we have a month off. I can't believe Christmas is only a month away, wow. It's going by so quickly.

Sadly I do not have a post or picture this week. I am at home sick :( I am working on getting better though. It's going fairly well... ish. I still don't know when I'm coming back to school though. But I guess we will see. Hopefully everyone else is feeling healthy! :)

hi! so I am going to conference this weekend so that's exciting. but my blog post is going to be random this week. I am looking into a photographer for my paper, I've been looking. because since my adventures in sports I decided I wanted to write on a famous sports photographer. except that seems harder to find than I anticipated. there are some names I'm finding but it's hard to find more than one source on them. some of them shoot for sports illustrated but I don't know if that really makes them famous. I feel like it's harder to become famous as a sports photographer, it's a different kind of photography. most of them are males too, which I guess isn't a surprise. but if anyone has any suggestions? or I guess I will just keep looking. but next week I think I am going to shoot pictures at dance and at the basketball game. everyone really liked my dance pictures. I wish I had some to put up but I forgot to convert them to jpeg :( I feel like it's such a process to do that sometimes. but they all really liked them and they told me I should bring my camera more often and take pictures whenever I wanted and they'd put them in the slideshow too. yay! it's a step in the right direction I guess. but yup. we will see. so sunday will be core and monday will be the game. maybe with a few dance pictures at half time. that might work, haha.

So these are just some of my pictures from RAW Monday night. Sadly, I didn't bring my photo camera because I called ahead of time and they said cameras with detachable lens were not allowed. However, they didn't even check my bag when I went in so I totally could have brought it. I'm not sure it would have made a difference though, the lighting was really bad. It was very red for some reason and smoky because of the pyrotechnics. But I did have my regular camera and I got some good ones of John Cena :) These are just a few in general, I posted more on Facebook but it was a lot of fun. We talked about how that I could be taking official pictures someday because there was one guy with two cameras on his arm/neck and I was like whoa that would be so cool - he was right next to the ring and everything. But then I noticed that all of the staff around the ring - video, photography, etc, anything were all male. The only female staff I saw at all were the EMS people that took one of the wrestlers out on a stretcher. I'm not sure if that's just a coincidence - I doubt it. It's really upsetting though. And I was talking to people about it and they're like well females in the WWE are not valued as much as males. The Divas are objectified and whatnot. But I was also thinking that maybe it's for safety reasons? They do come out of the ring a lot and they wouldn't want weak women around them. I don't know. Either way it's upsetting because that would be so exciting. But we will see. I don't know what sports pictures I'm taking this week, it's hard because there's a gap between fall/winter sports and right now there's only the playoffs so we'll see. But RAW was definitely fun :) and YAY John Cena

So this is my friend Karissa and her boyfriend Alex at the Big E which I finally got around to editing. However, they still look very gray. I think I warmed it up a bit after I saved it to jpeg unfortunately because I then printed it for her. She is the friend in the hospital but she's getting better so that's good. But I printed it to bring to her because I feel helpless so this is all I can do. Anyways - I really like taking people pictures, not just sports people, but in general. I just don't feel comfortable with it yet. I don't want people to think I'm crazy or stalkerish - I'm a very shy person in general I guess. But this day they were together, it was so cute. I wish they would've let me take candids of them too but every time I got my camera out they freaked out and we're being cute anymore. Oh well. And below is John Cena. He is the reason we are going to Monday Night RAW this Monday. I looked up the rules for that though and it said no detachable camera lens. We will see what I feel like doing. I may actually just enjoy it without worrying about taking pictures. I'm not sure. Either way, John Cena will be there and it will be wonderful.

So this is my photo of the week. It's from a soccer game in my home town. I really like photographing sports when I know the people playing because I feel like it's more rewarding. But oh well. This light was incredibly hard to shoot in though. It was 4-6 pm and the sun kept going behind the clouds and coming back out and there were trees casting shadows and it was just difficult. I don't think I got any really worth printing but I got a bunch that I put on facebook for the girls, so they love that. Sadly, like I said in class the other day - I know half of them because my brother dated them. But oh well. There were also a ton of other professional photographers at this game so I found one of them online, sadly I can't save her photos. But hers look very green/blue and more ... uniform than mine? She's just a local photographer that used to take pictures and upload them for free but now she copyrights them. But I am trying to look at other sports pictures to get ideas. It's just hard not knowing what settings they used too.

http://fatdogfotos.smugmug.com/HIGH-SCHOOL-SPORTS-2009/AHS-Girls-Varsity-Soccer/9960830_EqfSC#P-1-15

So these are the Chinese Acrobats from the Big E. I really liked them but unfortunately my pictures didn't come out that great. There were a lot of objects and white in the background so that's unfortunate. And I wish I had been able to sit in the front row or that I was taller so there weren't heads in all my pictures. But the content of them I believe is entertaining. Acrobats always amaze me. And they love to entertain, not just acrobatically but they were funny too.

So this is going to be a side note kind of thing because I didn't actually take this with my intense camera and it's not in RAW format and all of that. I'm actually really upset that it's not because I love it or at least really like it. I could have framed it better but we were in a rush, it was pouring down on us and I didn't want my camera to get too wet, haha. so my main reason for uploading this is because I love it and because I was trying to explain to my friend from home, Laura, how the rain makes pictures better. I took this exact same picture the day before on my intense camera and I guarantee it did not come out as nice. Which brings me to my problem, I treat my camera as if it's the most valuable item in the world. I'm still using my other camera for friends and random stuff and I feel like I shouldn't be? But then there's also the space issue. 250 pictures is like 3 GB or so, usually more than that. If I used that camera all the time I wouldn't know where to put the pictures. But Friday I carried both cameras around the Big E all day. Hopefully I got some good pictures, we will see later today when I upload them. But I just thought you would all appreciate this one :)

there are no cows in Worcester

-I am aware that all my paragraphs got smushed together, I tried to fix it and it keeps doing the same thing. But I did seperate paragraphs before.. ?

-This week I decided to have sports pictures that aren't necessarily all about the action as they are the expressions and emotions of the players. I don't know if I would print them for class but I thought they were entertaining.

-The first picture is from Holy Cross vs Lafeyette on Saturday - it was a very intense game. Number 11 from Lafeyette definitely had an interesting personality on the field. He began by yelling at him own teammates and then he got into a fight with a Holy Cross player earning him a yellow card. The game in general was high in tension after that. Then they went into two 10 minute sudden death overtimes - number 11 scored in the last 30 seconds of the second. He then proceeded to come over to the stands and show how excited he was with incredibly unsportsman like conduct. There was a lot of inappropriate language. This picture is of that precise moment. The Holy Cross players are on the ground defeated and Lafeyette is very excited. The ball actually is also in the photo - all the way on the left but sadly it's cut off a bit. I just think this really shows the emotion and passion that goes into a game - it's not all skill.

-The second picture is from Becker vs. Umass Boston on Tuesday - it was in the middle of nowhere. I wasn't aware that Becker has two campuses and all of their athletic fields are on the campus not in Worcester. So I got there only to have to take their shuttle to their other campus in the middle of nowhere. We went down long hilly roads and past cows, it was definitely not Worcester. It was also a bit hard because I couldn't get the settings right for the lighting. I was so excited it wasn't as sunny as earlier in the day but it was too dark and gray. However, I really like the expressions in this picture as well. Just how intense the Becker girl looks and how the other girl is cringing in anticipation. I know how that feels. At the Umass Lowell vs AIC game on Saturday I almost got hit right in the face/camera. But I ducked just in time.

-Anyways, I just really wanted to show something different about soccer instead of just intense action shots. There are other aspects to the game as well :) In general, I'm still having problems shooting the action shots though. Well, it's not a problem shooting them so much as framing them. As I found out, to print them as an 8.5x11 or someday even bigger than that I need to fill the whole frame when I shoot. I really can't crop anything or the quality is not as high and the picture won't enlarge as big. It's not easy though. I keep cutting off a little bit of a foot or arm and that's not an acceptable picture. But I am determined to get this. I feel like soccer has taken over my life, I don't even know how many games I've been too since I've started this. I do plan to try other sports though too. At Umass Lowell Saturday there was a field hockey game that I took pictures of at the halftime of the soccer game but I don't understand field hockey as much so it was harder to anticipate the action. I also want to try volleyball but I figure I should shoot outside while I still can because once winter sports start it's all going to be inside. So I think this is definitely long enough :)

my new lens

So I officially love my new lens, I'm still getting used to it but I really love it. These are my attempts at soccer pictures. Saturday I went to a girls game at Assumption vs. Umass Lowell, a friend plays for Umass Lowell. Sadly, I didn't get a great picture of her but I tried. Then that night I went Southern New Hampshire and they played AIC. My brother is a freshman at SNHU and on the soccer team but sadly he didn't get to play while I was there. But I had some problems there, the game didn't start until 7 and it got dark very quickly. It's not easy to shoot in that light at all. Then yesterday I took the shuttle to Assumption for another game there but this time it was the boys playing ... Queen? I'm not positive if that's the official college name but that's what their jerseys said. So I had lots of images to choose from - I filled up all my memory cards :) These are just a few pictures I chose for now. I'll see how the class reacts to see which ones they like and then maybe I'll post more