Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Day 176: Black and White

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/5.6, 1/100, ISO 400, Flash @ TTL-BL)

Softball on a Friday?  Ekklesia in black and white?  Oh dear.  More after the break.

So, I am pretty sure I have mentioned previously (if not, I am doing so now) that most of the memebers of the Ekklesia that you see here are from the same church, as is the case for every team and their respective churches in the CCSA.  As a church, ETCBC is always looking for additional ways to reach out and get involved with the local community, to which someone came across this league.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 200mm, f/2.8, 1/4000, ISO 200)

It appeared as a mere blip on my inbox way back when they were looking for players.  Somehow I imagine my "won't play but will shoot" reply might've gotten lost... or I never sent it... it really was a while back, and late February/March did suck because of school.  In any case, by the time I had heard they were in the thick of it I was already committed to shooting Ekklesia's CCSA practices and games, as well as the Quick Dumpers such that I was out two to three days of the week.  Still, the opportunity to shoot their final game came up, and it was one that I could not pass up. 

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 185mm, f/4, 1/1250, ISO 400)

To be blunt, the game was rather unremarkable.  I didn't really shoot anything spectacular, just the usual.  Since this wasn't a CCSA game, for which I considered I had free reign (as many other photographers did) just about anywhere behind a foul line, I limited myself to the areas just a tad back behind first and third, although I surrendered the latter position because a few members decided to light up some smokes, figuring there were less crappy ways I could die than via second-hand smoke.  Scorewise, it was a relatively easy victory for Ekklesia, their lineup saturated with softball veterans whose combined number of seasons played in any sort of organized league is probably in the hundreds.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~200mm, f/4, 1/640, ISO 250)

Being a competitive league, the atmosphere of the game was somewhat different from a CCSA game, which is a more community and fellowship-focused league.  I seemed to notice a lot that the opposing team tended to heckle the umpires on calls that didn't exactly go their way.  Ekklesia for the most part though, treated it like a CCSA game, doing their best to keep spirits high on both sides.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 200mm, f/2.8, 1/1250, ISO 800)

Towards the end I opted to pop out the strobe for a group shot, which actually worked pretty well, sans me shooting at ISO 400 with a flash.  Oh well.  Switched to TTL-BL which is fancypants acronym-talk for "use to get balanced fill flash".  It's the photo that you see at the very top of this post.  If you want to see a very bad example of flash that was only barely saved via post processing, look below.  The original was rediculously blown out.  Oh, that below is the coach Chihymn (featured on a Practice Thursday two weeks ago) getting watered after the game.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/100, ISO 400, Flash @ TTL-BL)

In any case, I've been rambling too long, so I'll stop here.  I present to you dear reader, your 2010 Don Victoria Softball League Adult Slo-Pitch championns: ETCBC Ekklesia.

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