PhotoAbuse – The Blog

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I went to New Lenox on Saturday night for round 2 of the 2010 New Lenox Concert Series. Once again, the place was packed and everyone seemed to be having fun. It started out pretty warm but as soon as the sun went down, things cooled off a bit.

I showed up a little later than usual this time because my editor didn’t need pictures of the first band. This is one time I’m sorry I didn’t see the whole show. The lead off band was called Probable Cause and they are a pretty darn good cover band from what I could tell. I will have to check them out in the future.

The second band up was Fastball. Good show here too. Nice paced and good musicians.

Survivor came on stage a little late but it was worth the wait. I wasn’t sure what to expect from these guys but they put on a helluva show! A whole lot of energy and some great music. The sound was great. Loud of course but it was very clear. Tip of the hat to the sound guys on that! I think that of all the shows I have shot there, Survivor got the most people on their feet. A solid show to say the least.

It was a fun night. I ended up with a lot of keepers from this night. Always a good thing.

Click on the picture for more snow!

Not much to type about but I thought I would share some snow pictures with you. It would appear that the midwest was spared this year. Seems pretty normal compared to the east coast. But then again, they seem to whine a little more about snow over there!

Click on the pooch for more pictures!

This was a fun weekend! I like variety and this weekend I got to make pictures of a bunch of different events.

Friday night was the Lincolnway Central vs Lincolnway East Hockey game. Also Senior Night for these schools. Once again, Bobby Hull was there signing autographs. I had made an 8×10 print of a picture of Kieran and Bobby from last year for him to autograph. He got a kick out of it and Kieran was pretty pumped about it! I also made a picture of the 2 of them for next year!  He is a very nice guy.

I went last year and it was packed. This year was no different. What’s cool about this is the energy level. These schools take hockey pretty seriously and it shows. The crowd was really into it and so were the players. There was some serious banging going on from the 1st faceoff on. Some great goaltending on both ends but in the end, East took the trophy. Thanks to Head Coach Bill Hetfleisch, I got to spend the game on the bench and had a great ongoing conversation with Ed Herbert, the goalie coach, between shots. Great night to say the least!

After the hockey game I shot over to the Charlie Horse to see a few people that I went to HS with. That was fun! I hadn’t seen a few of the girls since HS and it was great to see them again. No pictures there though. Just a little catching up!

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Click on the youngun for a few more pictures

Went out in the woods today for a short walk. The deer have broken into their normal sized groups now that the weather is a bit nicer. Also of note, a lot of the bucks are shedding their antlers. They look a little unnerved by the whole thing! I brought my usual bag of apples for them and held on to the last one.

As I was making pictures, one of the bigger does walked right up to me and just stood there looking at me. I was down on one knee looking up at her wondering what was going to happen next. So there we are just sort of looking at each other and she steps right up to me and bends down with a look on her face that said, “I know you still have an apple in your jacket. Hand it over. Now!”

I set my camera down, pulled the apple out of my pocket, and held it out to her. She bent down, sniffed it, and calmly took it out of my hand. The other deer didn’t know what the heck to do. She ate the entire apple less than 2 feet away from me. Would have made some great pictures but as life would have it, I had a zoom lens on and she was way too close. Figures.

After she was finished, she just looked at me for a few seconds, turned and walked back to her crew. All out of apples, I made a few more pictures and headed out.

I haven’t seen any geese or ducks lately because all of the lakes around here have frozen over. As I was driving today, I spied a creek with some open water. Filled with ducks. I found the secret duck refuge it appeared. I made a few pictures and headed home. A good day. You have to love it when the Blackhawks beat Detroit, and you come home with some good pictures!

Saturday afternoon I had the opportunity to shoot the IHSA Girls Sectional Swim Meet at Lincolnway East High School. I had only gone to one other swimming meet before and had moderate success. I spent Thursday and Friday looking at swimming photos and scoured the internet for shooting tips. I was shooting for 3 different papers and didn’t want to screw it up.

I had been sent a list of swimmers that the editors wanted photos of and the order that the different races would be run. So far so good. I had scribbled down the school names next to the races that the girls would be swimming in and figured my biggest problem would be the lighting. Most pools are dark and getting fast shutter speeds usually mean high iso’s.  I’m glad my camera is pretty good with noise even up to iso 1600. I can usually clean up the noise in Lightroom.

Well, all my planning went south when I walked in. As I was talking to one of the coaches from Tinley Park, she mentioned heat sheets. Heat sheets? Never heard of ‘em.  The number of races I had to shoot quadrupled before my eyes as she showed me her sheet! This was a perfect example of how showing up early pays off. After we talked for a bit, I calmly ran out and picked up a sheet, sat down with pen in hand, and started circling names. I just sort of sat there and stared at the pages for a little while. This might work!

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It was that time of year again! Homecoming weekend is a lot of fun. I shot the Tinley Park football game Friday night and the kids there were having a lot of fun and really got into it. Everyone was picking them to lose the game but that was not part of the plan for Tinley. They won the game 12-6, crowned a new Queen and King, tailgated in the parking lot, and most of all, didn’t seem to mind that it was raining the whole time!

Saturday, I had the opportunity to shoot the Lincoln Way Central Homecoming Parade. These kids were just as pumped as the Tinley kids. LWC got everyone involved in this one. All the youth cheerleaders and football players were represented in addition to the LWC cheerleaders, players, and just about anyone else from LWC that wanted to participate. Like Tinley, everyone had a whole lot of fun even though it rained pretty hard at times.

Hopefully next year there will be clear skies!

You can see more photos here.