Today I wanted to try learning more about photographing moving people, and luckily for me I live with two young people who never stand still for more than three seconds!
The plan was straight forward, take Livvy and Izzy to the park, and on the way they could also run around in the woods we pass through.
I really wanted to capture their long blonde hair in some interesting “mid action” positions.
Both the girls thought it was a great idea, and so we set off on our adventure for the afternoon.
Both girls really took up the mantle, and they ran, and ran, and ran, and ran – up and down every slope they could find, up paths, down paths, across fields you name it they ran it!
At points, they were harder to photograph than the gerbils, and they move really quickly.
Livvy is so protective of Izzy, she is such a good big sister, whenever their was a slope or something Livvy took Izzy’s hand and they ran together.
They really are heaven to be around when they’re playing together, it just melts my heart every time.
When I do ask them on occasion to just stand for a moment for a photograph, Livvy always strikes a lovely pose, and Izzy, always strikes the most unusual poses you’ve ever seen – I have no idea how she thinks of them.
They’re they go again, Livvy angelic as ever, and Izzy doing, erm something. I actually think she might be pretending to take a photograph in this one, but who knows.
At the end of the run through the woods, the girls had a good play on the park.
Again, they play together so wonderfully.
Not content with hurtling through the woods on the way, both girls did it all again on the way back; there is just no stopping them, and I love them all the more for it. XX
Learnings – today I mostly used the “sport” mode on my camera, because it’s pre set to capture fast moving people, sports people, so it had half a chance of keeping up with this pair.
One of the main aspects of the setting is that it takes a burst of three shots so you can capture the moment. Not only that but it also puts the shutter into “quick fire” mode, so you can pretty much take a shot as quickly as you can press the button.
However, I did find it a bit limiting in other aspects, and so I did drop into manual mode some of the time.
Capturing the girls hair flowing around was much harder than I thought, the moment it’s actually really fanned out and at max “bounce” is actually only a split second.
For some reason just the sports mode didn’t get me the cleanest shot, I’m not sure why yet, so copying some of the setting in sports mode, including “quick fire”, and taking them into manual and adjusting some other bits and bobs got me the best shots.
Oh, and I found out how to set the focus points (or whatever them 9 or so red dots are called when the camera focuses), so I’m made up with that, and it really helped today on the swings, because I could set the focus to one point in the middle, stay still and then wait for the swing to come back to take the shot. If the focus points were all active, the auto focus would try and focus on whatever part of the swing crossed whichever of the focus points path(s), which wasn’t always the element I wanted in focus.
Anyway, all in all we had a great time, and as all my adventures are with the girls, whatever I’m doing is always second best to just enjoying watching them play and hearing their infectious laughs and giggles.
Onegav 