Blog Shots: Pics from Block Island

Sally and I took a trip to Block Island earlier this month, located just off the coast of Narragansett, Rhode Island.  The weather wasn't great for much of the trip, so I wound up spending a goodly amount of my time practicing photography.  

Some of those pics are presented below.

Pics from Narragansett Beach, Rhode Island

Hannah started body-boarding a few weeks ago, during our recent camping trip to Newport. She got really into it, so I took her to Rhode Island again this week for a second go.

It was a gorgeous day, but it was also a yellow flag day that we hit maybe ninety minutes before high tide. Saw maybe four foot swells and occasional rip-currents, meaning that we really needed to pay attention in the water. 

Obligatory selfie, Narragansett Beach, RI

Really, if we were gonna body-board in conditions like that, we needed fins, and Hannah needed a one-piece bathing suit. Among other issues, it got scary at times, even for me, and poor Hannah had trouble getting all the way out to the break line with her board. Hell, I didn't even take my board because it took all of my concentration just to get out to the break line with it, and that made it really difficult to keep an eye on Hannah. Given the swells and whatnot, abandoning her didn't seem like a particularly good idea. 

Still, Hannah caught a bunch of waves, and we both had fun. However, if we'd had fins, she probably would have caught her first curl.

Anyway. A few pics from the day are past the jump. I took these on my phone, so some of the distance shots don't have great resolution, unfortunately.

Digital Camera Experiments, Ver. 3.0

This photography thing has become a legit project.  I need to take a class, though, to get better at the craft.  Any pro's looking at these are undoubtedly shaking their heads in frustration.

What can you do?

This first set come from our trip to Mt. Snow last month.  These are the last from this particular trip.

At the summit, coming off the North Face.

Digital Camera Experiments

One of my projects over the offseason has been trying to improve as a photographer.  I've taken half-a-million pictures at Army Football games, but I don't feel like I've ever successfully captured the experience of being up in the stands at Michie Stadium.  That needs to change.

Alas, photography is a fully-formed and complex art form.  People spend their lives trying to take better pictures.  I'm not going to necessarily get where I want to be in a couple of weeks.  And yet, there is an enormous difference between wholly self-taught swimmers and those who've spent just a single year on an organized team.  I'm not looking to shoot at the Olympic level, but I would like to approach the comparative competence of a low-end high school letter-winner.  That seems doable, though maybe this is one of those occasions where I don't know what I don't know.

Seems possible.

My buddy Andy took this one at the 2018 Armed Forces Bowl.  He did a great job capturing the action, though I cropped it quite a bit for emphasis.  I also dialed the colors down a little to try to emphasize the drama of the action.  I like this 16:9 format, especially for football, because I feel like it gives the scene a scene of perspective and impending action.

Pics from Rhode Island

Sally and I went camping up in Rhode Island last week while our girls were on a mission trip to Philadelphia.  We stayed at a campsite maybe five miles north of Newport.  We were only up there for three days, and it felt like we spent half our time setting up or tearing down, but it was still nice to get away.  We spent a day at the beach and a day out on the bikes, and I cooked a lot on the travel grill.  The trip itself was a lot of work, but it was also fun.  

I took this one for the Grill Geek Instagram account.  I took it myself using my
camera's ten-second count-down timer and Night Portrait mode.

World Cup celebration.

I took these pictures with the camera I got for the coming Army Football season.  I was originally looking just for a simple point-and-shoot, but on my friend Matt's advice, I bought used and went a little upscale.  The camera itself is 2014 tech, but I prioritized optical zoom and wound up with a decent piece of entry-level equipment.  I'm not some great photographer, but I read the manual cover-to-cover, and I then spent a good amount of our trip playing with the settings.  Results are below.

5 Things on a Friday: Waiting for My Giant Seahorse

I was on vacation the first three days this week, and it still feels like it’s been a long week.  Argh!

Happy Friday, folks.