When it's hot and muggy out

There's no better place to be but an ice rink. Yes, especially in mid-July on a hot and muggy evening. Dylan goes to a power skating hour in Pembroke. That rink is so cold that even the penguins have the sniffles and shivers in there. We made the big mistake last year of giving Dylan the summer off the ice but this year right after the season was over, Dylan spent two nights a week on the ice for 6 weeks. We let him take 3 weeks off with nothing and now he's back on one night a week until after the family vacation and then he's back on 2 nights a week until the season starts. Last season, he was on the ice almost everyday towards the end of August.

If you thought ice hockey was just a winter sport - you were way off!

Dylan wears his Yankee Conference All-Star jersey for practice. I'm so glad he loves playing and works so hard to get good at it. I'm so glad that having him in hockey gives me a great opportunity to practice taking photos in such a challenging environment (lighting is all fluorescent lighting and the ice acts as a reflector but unless I'm on the bench, I am shooting through glass and learning how to make that ice look white instead of grey in my shots).

Panning is something that I need to practice more - According to Wikipedia, "When photographing a moving subject, the panning technique is achieved by keeping the subject in the same position of the frame for the duration of the exposure. The length of the exposure must be long enough to allow the background to blur due to the movement of the camera as you follow the subject in the viewfinder." An example I took of Dylan tonight:
Dylan is mostly in focus while the rest of the background in a bit blurry. This implies that he is in motion.

I have all summer to figure out how to do this consistently before the season begins. YIPPY!

While we were in the stands, I got this shot of Melody -
That was pretty much the same expression I had when I saw how much Dylan's skating has improved because of this hockey clinic. Unbelievable!

I hope he sticks with it and I hope he works as hard at everything in life as he does at skating. He has the kind of stuff in him that makes great things greater...maybe I'm a little bias because I'm his mom. I'm also a pretty decent judge of character - Dylan's got what it takes to become a superstar in his own right. Of that, I'm sure.

Just one little photo...

...of my little Angel in our friends' Mike and Michele's pool....
I love their backyard - it's like the ultimate party backyard - hope to visit more often this summer....thanks for having us over.

Our long long July 4th weekend

How long can you stretch out a holiday weekend? In my case, I am on my 4th and last day of my long long 4th of July weekend. What did we do this weekend?

Well, there was some visiting with cousins up in NH. They are the only family I have out this way (the rest of the family we have up here is actually Adam's family - well, my family too but you know what I mean). I took a couple of photos of Angelica at the pool:
Angel probably has a BMI of -3. She's 7 years old and hasn't broken 50lbs yet. She's built like a twig...but she's not frail - she's probably as healthy as we should all hope to be.
I like this photo better - One of the things I want to work on this summer is to learn how to shoot in full manual. I have a crazy habit of staying in Aperture Priority (AV) mode on my camera. While it's cool for tricks like blurring the background and capturing bokeh, it's not as helpful as shooting in full manual. I think it would help making sure what I want in focus is in focus. I find that in both these photos, Angelica's face is only softly focused when I wanted her face to be more focused.

Besides breaking out my camera, I finished a long awaited scrapbook for my friend, Michele and started making the invitations for her little one's birthday. Adam and the kids put up the tent we got him for Father's Day in the backyard. They tried twice to sleep in there overnight. We're in desperate need of blow up beds or camp cots or something - last night they all came in at midnight because out old Aerobeds did not hold up and flattened out by then. I'll have to photo the tent the next time they put it up.

We did a lot of swimming this weekend - here in New England it's been 90+ (or around there) for the entire weekend. We went to Auntie Sandie's pool on the 4th and yesterday to cool off. My favorite picture of the weekend:

My favorite people in the whole world - love you guys - here's to a great summer ahead!!!