photos from December's end

Before I post the new stuff, I decided to put up all the past days photos (and I realize I posted New Year's before this one)

DEC. 22
I am doing a story on the Scottsville Ice Rink Youth Hockey Learn to skate program, and the weekend before Christmas Santa came to play. Since I barely had any access at this point (which is disappointing because I could have gotten an awesome shot had I been allowed then where I am now) I was shooting from the bench. This was just the most interesting shot that I fired off when same came to skate.

DEC 24
It was a Nintendo DS Christmas at the extended Morrison Family Annual Christmas Eve gathering. I spent most of the day helping my cousin Nathan master his Pokemon Sapphire game. Amusingly he later called me to get help with it once he returned to his house. I liked the light of the gameboy shining on his face (its not drastic) and the intense attention that he is paying towards this game. Not to mention that was where I sat in order to best assist him, since I was the only "old" person who knew how to play the game.

DEC 28
Tonight was a night of chatter, reminiscing, and tea with an old friend, an ex boyfriend, and a new Aussie bud. I could give you a deep analysis of everything that this photo could stand for but; in reality, I was playing with my new (but really old) teleconverter 2x while it was attached to my 50mm f/1.4. I was trying to get a nice macro shot of the tin cup of mikes and ikes. Instead Ivy tried to eat the entire container. We were greatly amused, and I love how we still have deep amazing conversations.

DEC 29

Today was a blast! After getting lost driving 2 hours (or more) to my photo shoot's rescheduled location, I finally made it to the forests of Woodgate, NY (buried under 3.5 feet of snow!). Today was my first video shoot. Instead of trying to do audio, video, and stills, I wanted to play with the Canon GL-2 (which by the way is an amazing camera). I shot around 40 mins of footage, and went out on a limb to see what I could and couldn't do videowise. I have yet to edit the footage, but I cannot wait to take a look. I feel like I can produce a good 1:30min to 2 min video clip from it all.
But this image is a still (not a video grab). I did have my other gear with me because I did not know what to expect. (Since I have been doing a project on Sled Dog Racing, I have further supported my decision to raise these dogs someday). But I felt since it would be too hard for me to capture a variation of photos because of the set up of the run, I should do some video capture. However, I couldn't resist taking some portraits of the Dogs in their kennels. This one was the most striking because he had 2 different color eyes: both piercing me with their stare through the truck cage. I made sure to line the eyes up between the gaps in the grate to get the least distraction as possible. It is a shot that I will need to continue to recapture and recreate again and again.

DEC 31

This was the last "assignment" I would do for the year. I was covering the Teen Center's New Year's Eve Formal. In order to get some different shots I snuck up into the DJ booth with Jacob Dowker, the nights DJ. I eventually ended up hanging out there most of the night unless I saw something I wanted to photograph, and I was ultimately sucked into being the DJ for a good 1.5 hours. (Its sad that most of those kids had never heard bohemian rhapsody before that, and it was so awkwardly silent that I had to cut it out way early).
It was fun to snap some shots of Jacob while he was having a great time downloading songs and playing them for people upon request. This one was my favorite, mainly because of the ridiculous expression on Jake's face. However, that is what he did whenever he found a good song to play and was intently listening. So as the good friend that I am I captured it for him.