This one works for me...

One of the things I enjoy doing is sports photography... I am not necessarily a knowledgeable sports fan that can spit out facts and figures, I just like the process of capturing a quality fleeting moment not easily seen by the naked eye... it gets the ole heart pumping when you know you've got a good one "in the can"!

Decent images of penalty shots  and shootouts have always been rather tough for me.. I mean how do you capture the essence of a the moment like that? You have so many elements, the kicker, the goalie, the team, the fans, the officials... over the past few games I think I have found an angle that I like and have been exploring it.

Shooting behind the net!! That's the ticket... well at least for me for now... :-) shooting this angle has always appealed to me, but finding the right way to capture great moments with this angle I have not always been successful with. But after shooting a few games doing it more frequently I think I have found a way to include multiple elements of a nail biting scene that gets pretty much gets everyone on their feet.

Mt Saint Helens

So this was the first time I had ever been to the Mt Saint Helens Johnston Ridge Observatory, we were in the area for a soccer tournament and had time for a quick trip between soccer games.

I found the facility itself to be a neat design built into the hill side with an absolutely incredible view of Mt. Saint Helens, but my trip there was a bit abbreviated and kinda reminded me of the Speed Zoo scene from the movie 'True Crime' with Clint Eastwood.

We had time to check out the view, then scamper back down for a short movie on the mountain and the eruption and the damage it caused and then a brief cruise through the interpretive center hitting a couple highlights on the way out and time for a group photo before heading back to the car and back to the motel for some rest before the next game.

The image is from the theater which shows a movie and when done has some curtains the open up for a spectacular window view!!

Day 181

Soccer practice... I put myself in harms way by hanging out behind the goal (without a net) and trying to capture some nice goalie saves. My objective was fruitless but I still came up with a couple decent shots... here is one I did some editing on.

Soccer Season has begun

Today my son's soccer season officially started with a weekend tournament... Yeah!

here are a few from today...