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.