Documenting the Memories

I have to admit that I like vacations.

I especially like the ones where we drive and see many different scenic parts of our vast country. Having just returned from another such jaunt, I’ve already recovered from being away from home these past few weeks. Here’s a look back to some of the photos that I took on the trip.

On this vacation we drove some 6300 miles and took in some wonderfully gorgeous areas including the Tetons, Yellowstone, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, San Diego, Phoenix, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Mesa Verde and finally Rocky Mountain National Park.

My wife Kris and I left Grand Rapids and at this time in our lives, instead of traveling with our children we had four grandkids in tow. One of our goals was to drop off two of the grandkids in Reno. But these two also had a wish to see Yellowstone, so we set the GPS to guide us to Old Faithful. Afterwards we would meet up with several of our adult children and additional grandchildren as we made our way to additional destinations.

Naturally I had several cameras with me to record our travels. And while I thoroughly enjoy photographing the amazing mountains, canyons, monuments, waterways, forests, sites and scenery, more importantly are the photos that let me recall the precious time that we spent with our family.

Here’s some of the pictures that illustrate those moments.

Admiring Oxbow Bend in Grand Teton Nat’l Park	Waiting for Old Faithful in Yellowstone

In awe of Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone	cooling off in the Firehole River in Yellowstone

at the swimming pool in Reno	aggressive paddleboarding at Lake Tahoe

inspecting the tufa at Mono Lake	colorful wildflowers of Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite

surfing the Pacific in San Diego	catching a mermaid in San Diego

picking grapefruit in Phoenix	sitting on the edge of Grand Canyon

among the wonders of Monument Valley	straddling NM, AZ, UT and CO at Four Corners

As you can see, we visited some very gorgeous landscapes: incredible mountains, pristine wildernesses, jaw-dropping gorges, crystal clear lakes, raging rivers, enormous farmlands, five sensational national parks – just a vast array of features that make up our amazing country. And while I have many more images that record these places that we visited, I’m just as content to see the faces of the grandkids, many of which we get to see but once a year.

house warming at Mesa Verde

How lucky we are to be able to capture the smiles on their faces like this.	above the snow and clouds at Rocky Mountain Nat’l Park

 

 
Photographs are certainly a powerful way to record memorable events.

Whether I’m on vacation or not, I try to keep the most meaningful memories as part of my photos.

 

 

Written by: Arnie Lee

 

 

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A case against Stop Action

The usual “rule” for photography is to choose a shutter speed fast enough to eliminate the jitter or bluriness when the subject moves.

But sometimes ignoring the rule leads to more interesting photographs.

Here’s a few examples.

This little girl is practicing to become a major league baseball player. She’s winding up, ready to let ‘er rip. By using a slower shutter speed, can’t you feel the breeze as she whips the ball towards the batter? Here the shutter speed was 1/50th second. Had I used a faster shutter speed, her left arm would have been frozen.		Here she’s enjoying the outdoor swingset. By itself, the photo shows no movement. But seeing her at the apogee (highest point) of the swing, doesn’t it conjure the feeling of motion? Recall that at the top of her swing, the velocity is zero – enabling you to use a relatively slow shutter speed to “capture” the motion.
Again we see a subject on a swingset but this time upside down. The relatively slow shutter speed of 1/100th second stops the action at the top of her swing. In this case, the pose with her legs flailing about helps to introduce movement. And see how her hair is flying thereby adding to the feeling of action in the image.		A final example is this photo that lets me see the speed of the hoop and just about hear the air whirling around. For this photo, I patiently waited for a moment when the young girl’s face was in a relatively fixed position while at the same time her arms were wildly gyrating within the hoop. Then CLICK.

 
 
Use your camera’s shutter speed priority mode. Try setting the shutter speed to 1/100th of a second or slower – e.g. 1/25 or 1/50. If you use an even slower shutter speed, you may end up with blurry photos since you may not be able to hold the camera steady enough without introducing camera shake.

With just a little practice you can make your photos move.

 
 
Written by Arnie Lee
 
 
 

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You May Be Pleasantly Surprised By What You See

 

One of our granddaughters has been interested in picturetaking for a several years. Ezra who is eight years old is now on her second camera – her first camera was a low-cost point-and-shoot model but it didn’t quite survive a washing machine cleaning. So now she’s using a “tough” model that claims to be shockproof, waterproof and freezeproof.

Not long ago, she asked me to copy the pictures from her camera and recharge the battery. As I was copying the images from the SD card, I realized that these were photos that she had taken months ago. The earliest ones dated back to last summer’s vacation, a few other road trips and other events since then.

I studied the more than three hundred of her thumbnails. Frankly, I came away quite impressed with many of her photos. They showed her ability to pick varied subjects, frame carefully from her lowered point of view (she’s about 40″ tall) and snap at an interesting time.

I thought it would be helpful if I picked a few dozen of her photos to show to you with an quick explanation of when and/or where they were taken (as far as I can remember). For the most part the photos are unretouched with some cropping.

Without further ado, here are some of the “Best of Ezra”

On one of the school outings, her class visited a nature preserve. Here’s some of the flora that she caught her attention.	It looks as if Ezra also caught this yellowjacket sucking nectar from the flowers.
At an art festival she apparently liked the metal horse sculpture racing in the river.	This is another display of artfully decorated eggshells
After viewing the eggshells, Ezra talked to and photographed the artist.	This artist was apparently tired after talking to Ezra and other patrons for hours on end. Ezra captured her stealing a little rest.
One of the stops on our summer vacation was in Yellowstone National Park. This is one of the bubbling geyers in the north end of the park.	And you can see that tiny details don’t escape her either.
I’m surprised that the squirrel allowed her to get so close to her. She took five other photos at this close range too.	During play, she stopped to take a picture of her younger sister’s bedroom.
Inside she wanted a closeup of the standing guitar.	Here’s one of Ezra’s schoolmates. She frequently takes her camera to school to records the class trips.
This is one way for her to record a drawing that she enjoyed creating.	It was fun for her to photograph her sister’s feet.
…Or the other way – keep your head pointed upward.	Sometimes it’s interesting to keep your head pointed downward.
This picture shows that she’s keenly aware of the change of seasons.	On a cross-country trip we first stopped in Mesa Verde where she saw this mule deer grazing by the roadside.
Bright flowers nearby in southwestern Colorado.	At the Native American museum in Tuba City, AZ.
As you can see below, Ezra really put her camera to work in the Grand Canyon.
Grandpa	Grandma

 

Ezra has promised to take good care of the camera. It’s an Olympus Model 6020 and is very rugged. It’s been dropped many times and just like the advertisements claim – it remains fully operational.

And as you can see, an eight year old is fully capable of capturing memorable images. Give the kid a camera!

 

Written by Arnie Lee

 

 

 

 

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