River Hill Varsity Football

A couple of weeks ago, before my Idaho trip, I went shooting at the Varsity game at River Hill High School, in Clarksville, MD. It was an interesting experience. I didn't do as well as I would have liked. I switched to a different focus button on my camera and didn't have much luck with that. Also, they play at night, which is trickier to shoot than daytime football. Football can be tricky enough as it is - with the fast action and moving subjects - plus you need the long lens to even hope to get close to the action. So, I returned this past Friday for round two. I have two great friends, who are mentoring me - Nancy Hostetler and Lisa Hostetler - they're sister-in-laws and great photographers on their own. You can see their work on the River Hill Unofficial website under sports. They've been very generous with advice and I really appreciate it. I don't know if they want me to keep coming though - every time I go to a Varsity game, it rains. That just adds to the drama.

This second round I was a bit happier with. I got a lot more "keepers" and generally had a much better experience. Of course, as stated, it was raining, so you can see the rain in some the pictures. These are six I wanted to post to kind of give a taste of the game. River Hill played Mt. Hebron. They won 63 - 0. Lot of great action shots of River Hill (in the yellow pants). It was a hard night for Mt. Hebron, but they never gave up and played hard all night, in the rain.





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Savannah

So, I've been away in Boise, ID for the past week enjoying my first grandchild. Seems amazing that I have one of those, but since she's such a cutie, I guess I don't mind too much! Her name is Savannah and she was born on Sept. 12, 2008 at 11:57 PM. I was privileged to spend the first week of her life with her, as well as take a few photographs. In case you didn't know, it's not easy taking images of a newborn. They are not particularly cooperative, nor are they on a schedule that you can plan around. Luckily, since I was staying there, I could just grab my camera when the time presented itself.

This first image is one I love. Actually, I love all of these... Anyway, one of the challenges I found was getting her to look at me when I was trying to capture her image and here she is - staring right at me!



This next one shows the contrast in size of her feet and her daddy's hands. Babies grow so quickly, it's always a little startling to remember how small they start.



This next one was another fortunate piece of timing. When awake, she loves to look around and I was able to catch her looking at me for once!



This last one was a fleeting sleeping smile. Being a newborn, she can't smile at will, but she would a lot in her sleep, especially when she first fell asleep. Again, I was lucky to catch the fleeting grin on her sweet face.



So I don't get to see her again until Thanksgiving - I guess you'll just have to wait for more. I know I am!