Tag Archives: photographer
Culver Academy Football Photos: CMA Varsity Football Game
It’s a great day to be an Eagle! Culver Military Academy’s Eagles had its first 2009 football game today. Unfortunately, it was raining and I didn’t want to damage my camera, so I got off only a handful of shots. One of my favorite things to do as a photographer is shoot sporting events at both Culver Academies and Culver Community schools. Parents are rightfully wrapped up in watching the game and seeing their child play that they are often without a camera or the patience to shoot the game. I love shooting just about any sporting event and have met some great coaches and parents in the process.
Recently, I started shooting the sporting events with Nikon’s 70-200 mm F2.8 lens. It’s built for action, and I’m absolutely addicted to using it. Ginny and I will be shooting a lot of sporting events this school year. Catch up on any games you miss at www.culverphotos.com. In this set, I did catch Zach Deery as he scored a touchdown after an amazing return kick. He went the full length of the field and had some great blocks from teammates to make the score. It was impressive, even in the rain.
Culver Academy Soccer Photos: CGA Soccer vs. Warsaw
I really was looking forward to this game as it was the first game that I covered for the 2009-2010 school year. It may have only beeen a scrimage, but the girls played as though it were a championship game. The game didn’t start until 7:00 p.m., so I was faced with a setting sun that made more warm photos. In the beginning, I was able to get fast shutter speeds with my 70-200 mm f2.8 with a 2x duplexer, but as the game progressed, I was fighting the lack of light. For this game, I had a difficult time choosing my favorites. I ended up with a lot of photos that showed great action. If you’d like to see more after viewing what I have posted here, please visit www.culverphotos.com. There, I’ve posted 187 photos from the game under the Culver Academy, Sports section.
Indiana Photography: Corn and Country Roads
As noted in other entries, Ginny and I like to hit the country roads and take pictures. For some reason, on this day, we tended to take photos of roads and corn. Maybe it’s because the lines popped out at us, or maybe we were just craving corn on the cob. We ended our day taking shots of some wild flowers along the side of the road. Ginny took several pictures of bees pollinating the flowers. Their wings move so quickly that it was difficult to get a focused shot. Ginny claims she needs to purchase a certain lens from her dream list, so she can take more close-ups of bugs. She did seem to like those bees. She also likes to take wooden posts and signs along the road. We might need to avoid the pictures of signs that say “Private Property.” We tend to not pay attention to details that could get us in trouble. We promise that we don’t cross that particular line and we do stay off private property, however. Hope you enjoy some of lines we discovered among the roads and the rows of corn.
Culver Indiana Photography: Country Shots
We like to get in the car and roam around the country roads around Culver and take pictures of whatever we see. Ginny was reading a photoblog of a photographer in Pennsylvania who shoots only within a 15-mile radius of her home. So, we thought we’d try to do the same thing to see what surrounds Culver. What we discovered is that there is beauty all around us. Our first trip out found us wandering the cornfield-lined roads for hours. Included here are a few shots of what we found. We hope it’ll inspire you to take a few minutes to “wander Indiana.” On our route, we saw a woman collecting wild flowers. We found this simple task to have its own inherent beauty. Ginny decided to ask her permission to photograph her as she rode her bike away from us. She smiled and said, “I guess that would be okay.” If for some reason she finds her way to this blog, we hope she will see the beauty we saw in her as she traveled down the road on this day.
Culver Indiana Wedding Photographer: A Sunset Ceremony
Ginny and I were honored to shoot the wedding of Ty and Diana Fujimura. Ty is the son of Cheryl and Tom Fujimura. For those who went to Culver Academies in the 80s, you might know Mr. Fujimura as “Dean Fujimura.” For this wedding, we fought the rapidly descending sun, as the ceremony started around 7:30 p.m. We struggled with lighting issues all night, but we learned that you must work with what you get in this scenario, and sometimes, you get more than you hoped for. In some cases, the sun gives you warm, golden pictures that you couldn’t create superficially if you wanted to; in other cases, it created a romantic setting. In still other cases, it blew out shots and meant we had to adjust settings throughout the evening.
The bride and groom are fun people, beautiful to photograph, and showed great love and respect for their friends and family. We enjoyed catching some of the moments they shared on their special day.
Plymouth Indiana Wedding Photographer: Wedding in a Park
Ginny and I shot the wedding of Ashley and Seth Ellinger. The ceremony was held at a park in Plymouth, IN. They used a gazeebo for a more intimate ceremony, and then had the reception in the park with a larger crowd. Ginny shot from the back of the gazeebo, while I moved around it. My favorite shot is one Ginny got of the flower girls. She noticed they were getting tired of being on their feet and had begun to move toward each other. Ginny waited patiently for the right moment, and I think she captured it here. Though it was a short evening, we had a great time shooting this beautiful groom and bride. Here are a handful of shots from the evening.
Culver Indiana Photographer: Chairs for Charity
Ginny is a member of Tri Kappa, a women’s chairity organization here in Culver. They held a chairs for charity auction and asked me to shoot some pictures. I thought this selection of chairs would be most interesting. They had several chairs representing every type of method of artistry among them. One was a knit chair, some were painted, some were upholstered, some were decorated for a specific theme, and there were some unusual, one-of-a-kind pieces. They raised over $7,000, which is impressive in our little town. Congratulations to all of the artists who contributed and to the Tri Kappa women who hosted a classy event.
Culver Indiana Children Photographer: Visiting Friends
Today, I was visiting friends Tommy and Coleen Denham. Their daughter Sydney was enjoying some of her water toys in their back yard. I had my camera in the car, so Tommy asked me to get some shots of Sydney playing. Sydney is obviously a beautiful child, so I tried to get her to ham it up for the camera. I think she did a great job and had a good time.
Culver Indiana Children Photographer: Lucy Quinn Martin
You’ll see a lot of blog entries for Miss Lucy Quinn Martin, our niece and daughter of Angie and Darin Martin. It’s obvious we love shooting our nieces and nephews. Lucy is one of our favorite subjects to shoot, as she has so many great expressions, and she is such a happy child. Lucy is full of joy and expresses it so freely among those she’s surrounded by; she also seems to express what I can only describe as her “brilliance.” As Ginny likes to say, “Lucy is a brilliant child,” and her way of exploring the world shows how how quickly she learns. Capturing her childhood moments on camera is a lot of fun and makes you feel like you can have a little bit of that childhood joy again.
Ginny and I like to use a long lens when photographing candid moments, as kids will forget you are there if you don’t intrude on their playing time and what they decide to explore in those moments when they don’t realize you are there. Lucy will give you ample opportunity to shoot her every expression of childhood joy if you wait patiently.
In these shots, Ginny and I captured her as she wandered about while the adults played a baseball game in the backyard of Ginny’s parents’ house. There is also one of her trying to figure out what is going on with her shoe after a trip to the beach. A thin string was coming out of her shoe, so she stopped in the middle of this field to see what that was about. You can tell she was really tired in the picture. It has turned out to be one of my favorites, as I’ve seen this pre-nap look before, and it seems like Lucy will fight sleep just to figure something else out. Here, the simple thread of her shoe was fascinating enough to take a moment of rest in the field on the way back to the car.
Culver Indiana Photographer: Boys and Girls Club Charity Auction
This year, Ginny was in charge of the Boys and Girls Club chairity auction. They went with a “Fabulous 50s Night” theme. It was a fabulous night, as they not only had a great party, but they raised over $40,000 for the Culver Boys and Girls Club. Ginny was thrilled with the turnout. My favorite part of the event was the hula hoop contest. The auction committee planners recruited well-known people from town to participate in a hula hoop contest that raised several thousand dollars. Chief of Police, Chief of Fire, the president of the town council, and many others hula hooped for money for the big event. They also had singer Quintin Flagg, a 50s singer, perform. He did a great job. The silent auction portion of the event was successful, and all seemed to have a good time. I captured a few pictures for the board, so that they could remember the evening.
