Freeze Frame

As you might guess from today's pictures I've discovered a new feature on my camera. I can take action shots! Pretty cool huh? It is great for taking pictures of something moving fast and just freeze something in motion. Now, these pictures aren't yet perfection, but I thought I'd share anyway.

This is something that my old camera just didn't do very well - usually the pictures came out blurry and the shutter speed was just so slow.

Every time the shutter release was pressed, I'd be waiting for the darn camera to take a picture. Not a big deal if I was trying to take pictures of yarn or people agreeing to stand still. But if I was trying to capture something more fleeting, I almost always missed the shot and ended up with an empty frame for a picture.

I haven't had many opportunities to use this feature yet and taking a picture of someone watching a basketball game is less than intriguing. That is usually what the other "subject" at my house is up to.

So, to this point all the practice I have had is taking pictures of Sherman running around the house and yard.

He really isn't built for speed and agility competitions. But I do like seeing the big guy lope across the yard. He kind of leans into his run and lets his tongue hang out. I love that he just puts all he has into it. He also doesn't have much stamina. He poops out quickly. Which is kind of nice though, he always comes back in the house ready for a nap!

He also has floppy ears and a bunch of loose skin around his face and jowls. So the motion of running creates kind of a wind tunnel effect on all of that excess and produces some funny faces. Now I can try and capture them and share.

I'm sure you all aren't as interested in Sherman as I am - and I don't expect anyone to be so, I promise that as I'm learning my new camera that all my pictures won't be of Sherman.

This last photo shows one of the faces I'm talking about.

I've got some other ideas that could create some interesting pictures using this feature on the camera. And I'll probably share them here if anything good comes up.

The ABC posts I was doing last year are all finished - I got all the way through the alphabet. So this year I will be left to posting and taking pictures of things I find interesting. I am going to be learning new stuff about my camera and posting as I do. So if it gets too boring just let me know.

I did join an additional blog to help fill the void of the ABC Along. It is called Do You Have One of These. The idea is kind of a cross between a scanvenger hunt and photo-journalism. Everyone in the group takes pictures of a same thing or idea and posts for all to see. There are a lot of familiar faces over there for me, so I probably won't post my pictures for there over here.

The first assignment we had was to photograph the stop sign closest to our house. The most recent is called Camera Shy and we are supposed to set the timer on our camera for two seconds and take a picture of us running away from the camera. The idea for this came from this guy's blog: Running From Camera.

These pictures of Sherman came from the "photo shoot" we had yesterday for Camera Shy. we actually had a lot of fun running around the yard. Brad even participated, although I promised I wouldn't blog his picture.

If you haven't already checked out Do You Have One of These - go take a look.