Dylan's last game

I got to see Dylan's last game - it ended in a tie. The Brockton Boxers played Braintree at the Pilgrim Rink C in Hingham...we led the whole game until late in the 3rd when Braintree scored 2 more goals to tie it up 4-4...and that's how it ended. We almost didn't play because when we got there at 7:20am, there was no electricity - the town of Hingham had some kinda brownout - me and the girls went to Dunkin' Donuts and the street light in a major 5 way intersection was out. The lights came on (literally 2 minutes before the kids were due out on the ice) and so we played.

I got some decent shots...before the game, the girls and I sat in the hallway because the rink was freezing - no heat until the electricity came on - and even then, it was still cold (duh, it's an ice rink)
This is Angel while she was eating her breakfast sandwich - the one I made her reluctantly share with her little sister.
This is Melody after the top of the chocolate chip muffin and a part of Angel's breakfast sandwich. No one was happy that I made them get up at 6:30am for a game that we almost didn't play...I love this picture - Melody's face isn't completely clean (which is not unusual for her) and I caught the light in her eyes (no flash)...

Some action shots...

All the above pictures of Dylan were taken with my Canon 75-300mm - no flash. I set my ISO to 400 for these photos. Only ok because I am not focused on blowing up these bad larrys...shooting in a higher ISO will make your pictures noisy (grainy). For portraits, I like ISO 100 - buttery smooth look. For the action shots, shooting in a higher ISO allows me to shoot at a faster shutter speed - allowing me to capture motion more easily.

The mantra of "can't have your cake and eat it too" (one thing that Karen Russell stressed in her Photographer's Workshop) is so true in photography...you can't have a buttery smooth picture in a non-perfect lighting situation (which is nearly always), shooting at a shutter speed that won't induce camera shake (anything slower than 1/15th of a second will usually result in a not so sharp image) without a flash. So, I'm in an ice rink, with the white of that ice in my face - lit up by the worst and probably the most energy INefficient fluorescent lighting, trying to shoot kids who are constantly moving a small tiny black hockey puck across a sheet of ice...I have to sacrifice something in order to get the shot I want...most times, it's ISO in this case - because I want to be able to shoot at a fast shutter speed with a constant aperature to keep everything in focus.

In the second picture of Dylan (the one with another Brockton player and half of a Braintree player), they are all moving. But it's a pretty sharp image because I shot it in ISO 400, f/5.6, with a shutter speed of 1/125th sec. If I blow this up, the photo would be a little grainy but all of Dylan is in focus and even though they are all moving, the image is pretty sharp. If I adjusted any one of those three factors (ISO, shutter speed or aperature) the image would be much different. We're talking strictly no flash...you could get very good exposures with flash...I happen to want to perfect my non-flashy skills....and I flash when appropriate (I beg your pardon).

That's about as technical as I can get...I'd love to blog more, but my friend Susan roped me into an inchie swap and I have like 6 more to design and 6 of each of those designs to make.
Besides, I gotta watch the presidential debate on tonight....it's like a sporting event...we may talk about this later...we'll see....