Day 238: Practice Thursday

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/30, ISO 1600)

The last Practice Thursday post for the year.  It's been a good run, and a long one at that.  The usual practice with folks going over their drills and some such.  Once again, I shifted towards doing some video stuff rather than shotguning in more photos than I really needed to have (I promise I'll get around to editing that soon).

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~200mm, f/4, 1/1600, ISO 200)

Took note of the nice clouds towards the latter end of practice.  Did not take note of my ISO rating.  D'oh.  Well, still looks pretty.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/2000, ISO 1600)

Shortly thereafter, we departed Warden Park for the last time this season.  Big weekend posts coming up  soon.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/2000, ISO 1600)

Day 237: Just Keeps On Goin'

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/1000, ISO 200)

Been sidelined by school.  Photography has pretty much ground to a halt for the most part with the periodic blip here and there.  

Likewise (as I'm sure you've noticed) blog posts have just kept on piling.  Went downtown on what should've been a day off, to attend a TEDxRyersonU marketing team meeting.  Not too much to talk about, as it was pretty brief.  Got on the bus at the right time though, as it started pouring about ten minutes in.

Keeping this one short.  Tomorrow would be Ekklesia's last practice.  

More to come.

Day 236: Cozy At Home

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/125, ISO 200)

Been out a lot the last couple of weeks, so I decided to take the day off and just relax at home as I was bound to be out every other day of the week for one reason or another.  Post processed the photo a little heavily with some Fill Light and Recovery in Lightroom.  

More to come soon.

Day 235: Ultimate Mondays

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~130mm, f/2.8, 1/250, ISO 3200)

First playoff game of the summer season, though it felt like a regular game to me.  As always, games would either be at one of two places, Sunnybrook Park during the evening, or Cherry Beach at night.  You can probably tell where the game took place judging by the picture, or looking at my Aperture/Shutter Speed/ISO settings. ;~)

 (Nikon D60, 35mm DX, f/2, 1/250, ISO 800)

This week's team was a rather interesting bunch.  Tall hulking folks that liked to make long passes and - in the case of a few of them - trick throws.  It was kind of like a "David and Goliath"-esque match up... physically. 

 (Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~130mm, f/2.8, 1/250, ISO 3200)

Early on the Quick Dumpers got stung pretty badly by said long passes, but after team captain Lawrence called a time out to outline a solid defense (as pictured above, with Lawrence showing how it's done) the team began to stop the bleeding and start clawing back with a few points.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~130mm, f/2.8, 1/250, ISO 3200)

In the end QD ended up losing, but not before putting on a wicked show of blocks and interceptions.  In my mind, they won, although the scoreboard would disagree with me... but who cares about that right?  Scores are overrated.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~185mm, f/2.8, 1/250, ISO 3200)

Day 234: The Home Stretch

(Nikon D90, 18-55 VR @ 18mm, f/8, 1/500, ISO 800)

This weekend was the first week of playoffs for the CCSA Senior Division.  The first two rounds would be played during this weekend with two divisions playing on Saturday and two more playing on Sunday.  Since Ekklesia finished at the top of their division, they received a bye to the second round of playoffs and thus were only required to play one game out of the whole weekend.  They would be squaring off against Missisauga Chinese Baptist Church Messengers who were able win their first game earlier in the day.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/640, ISO 200)

There was one snag however.  One of the parks - Parkway - got hit hard by the bad weather over the weekend and was pretty much knocked out of commission for the day.  All games scheduled at that park were thus bumped to the park that Ekklesia was playing at, leading to twice the number of games being squeezed into the same amount of time.  Despite the extra hecticness though all teams managed to take it in stride.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~145mm, f/4, 1/800)

If you recognize a familiar face on the other team, then you're correct.  Joanna (above two photos) from Quick Dumpers was playing on Messengers - pitting her against her own church.  All in good fun of course. 

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~82mm, f/4, 1/800)

For the most part Ekklesia managed to keep things under control for most of the game, though the Messengers did rally during one of the later innings in which they scored six of their seven runs.  Quite the inning where everything seemed to go right for them, including some big hits, nice runs, and capitalizing on some Ekklesia errors.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 70mm, f/4, 1/800)

After that inning though, Ekklesia managed to stop the bleeding and rebuild on their lead, eventually winning the game.  Good time was had by all, and there was a ton of support from ETCBC too.  Afterwards most of the team as well as several of the fans headed off to our beloved season-long pub: The Owl and Firkin.  

A good start to the playoffs.  On paper the playoff road favoured Ekklesia going to the finals, but of course no one was taking anything for granted.  Still, a win meant that the season was extended at least one more week for the team meaning that you, the reader get at least one more weekend's worth of softball blogging.  

More to come.

Day 233: United

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/1600, ISO 200)

Lazy Saturday.  Headed out to the nearby CCSA diamond to catch a game that Themelios was umpiring.  Also playing was TCAC United, a team whom I shot for the season prior. 

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/2500, ISO 200)

Didn't really shoot much during the game.  Left the house light, with only a 35mm and D90 in a small shoulder bag and periodically ripped some frames from the first base side of home plate.  Kept mostly on the low, pretty much chatting with Elijah in-between innings.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/640, ISO 200)

Was interesting to watch United.  Though most of the team remained the same as last year, it looks like they've spent a lot of time honing their skills.  Plays were smoother, and hitting - especially from their girls - a lot more consistent.  Below are a few more frames from the day.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/800, ISO 200)

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/400, ISO 200)

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/125, ISO 200)

Headed out to dinner with some of the folks from Themelios afterwards.  Then proceeded to York Mills park with Elijah to catch the very end of a Dunamis game.  Capped off the day with Elijah and JT with some evening gaming.  Great start to the weekend, and it's only going to get better with Ekklesia playoffs scheduled for the next day.  More to come!

Day 232: Shine A Light

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4.5, 1/50, ISO 200, Off-Camera flash)

It's a TEDxRyersonU Friday!  Just some work in progress stuff in this post.  Started shooting the group portraits, for which the idea is essentially based off of what Zach Arias did for the Gulf Photo Plus group photo back in 2009.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4.5, 1/50, ISO 200, Off-Camera flash)

The idea is simple enough:  Hover a speedlight over someone, make sure you nail focus and exposure, then bring it all together in Photoshop with some layer masking and some-such.  Shot entirely on the 35mm lens, with my camera stationary on a tripod.  Focus confirmation was done via live-view as determining via the viewfinder would've been way too difficult and the fact that I don't completely trust the lens' ability to focus on something so small.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4.5, 1/50, ISO 200, Off-Camera flash)

Flash was an SB-900 on good ol' manual.  Triggered via the D90's pop-up flash.  Power was in the range of 1/40 to 1/32ish.  Didn't have to pump that much in given the proximity of the flash to the subject's face. 

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/5.6, 1/50, ISO 200, Off-Camera flash)

Still working on the final product, and awaiting a few other members to have their photo taken.  Will update when the final product is complete! 

Day 231: Practice Thursday

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/50, ISO 1600)

Thursday as usual, though not as many pictures.  Decided to give shooting some video a shot and wound up spending most of practice locked down on a tripod.  Though far from being perfect, it's fun to toy around with manual focus and shallow depth of field.  Now if only the D90 had a dedicated microphone input...

Video still in the raw stages.  Probably won't be getting around to it for a couple of weeks.  More to come soon.

Day 230: Blog-Blog-Blog

(Nikon D90, 18-55 VR @ 18mm, f/3.5, 1/40, ISO 400)

Oh yeah. Spent the day writing the massive final post for the third day of Formosan which seemingly took all day.  That, and probably clearing some of the backlog that had been building up a couple weeks ago.  Ironically, I'm in the midst of trying to clear up my own backlog right now too.  Hm.  

More to come.

Day 229: Enter Eugene

(Nikon D90, 18-55 VR, f/8, ISO 200, 1/800, Panoramic Stitch + Crop)

Spent the day shooting for my friend Eugene Loo.  We first met way back at the beginning of the softball season, when the team was at Albert's house watching The Suns lose and playing Taboo.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/2000, ISO 200)

A few weeks ago I found out he was running for Toronto City Council (Ward 24 - Willowdale).  While aware that this would probably be a pro-bono gig, I went ahead and asked him if he needed a photographer anyway, since I could use the taking-pictures-of-people experience and I figure it'd be low-pressure work anyway.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/4000, ISO 200)

So we basically spent the day driving around Willowdale grabbing photos as we went, shooting primarily portraits and landscape-esque photos.  As a bonus, I got a nice pseudo-tour of a community that I've - up until now - only just bussed passed or ridden a subway train underneath.  Wrapped within a few hours with the intent of doing this again somewhere down the road. 

(Nikon D90, 18-55 VR @ , f/2.8, 1/2000, ISO 200)

All in all, a pretty easy-going day.  

If you'd like to learn more about Euegene and his campaign, you can visit him at: 

http://www.eugeneloo.com/

http://www.whoiseugene.com/

Day 228: No Ultimate Monday

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 92mm, f/4, 1/320, ISO 800)

No Ultimate this week, as opposing team defaulted.  Well, at least the Quick Dumpers win! :)  So... not much to talk about.  Just hung around with them as they did drills (I was not aware of there being a game until I got to the park).  One point of interest though was the kite eating tree shown above.  Sorta reminded me of the one in all those Charlie Brown cartoons.  

Good times.  More to come.

Day 227: AK-25

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/60, ISO 500)

Perhaps one of the longest days all summer, would be Albert Kong's 25th birthday.  Most of which was spent tagging alongside Mr. ETCBC.

Sunday morning.  I haven't been to Sunday Service at ET since the previous summer.  Though I'm not a regular Sunday-church goer, I've found that I generally manage to walk away with something to think about in the few times that I have been to Sunday Service at ET.  Usually such a message would be delivered by Reverand Tim Tang, but as he's currently on sabbatical several other speakers have been coming in to fill in for him.  On this particular day, the speaker would be Deacon Norman Young.  He talk focused on finding the one true God.  To be honest, I never really caught on with the biblical references and what not, but at one point he did shift towards the notion of ignoring false gods and idols --> generally all of which were under the umbrella of the "God of Too Much of a Good Thing".  He listed five examples, which I believe were...:

1. The God of Ownership ("Mine, mine, mine" notion.  That we feel we are the owners of our posessions, rather than just stewarts of them for God)

2. The God of a Good Deal (Staying up into the wee hours to seek out that killer bargain...)

3. The God of Hyperconnectivity (The need to always stay connected, whether it be through email, text message, etc)

4. The God of Relationships (Admittedly, I do believe I may have glazed over the precise meaning of this)

5. The God of The Church (Overcommiting yourself to church-related tasks and events)

Now, mind you I'm probably not spot on with some of these, but I think you get the drift.  So, whilst sitting there I pondered, "Gee, you know Winston you take a lot of pictures... like a lot.  You should also be paying attention to Norm rather than only just now coming to the realization that you take a lot of pictures."  In all seriousness though, I did find that to be the case.  I also spend probably far more time than I should looking up the prices of pretty much anything I intend to buy and have a serious problem of having to check my email before I wake up, but damnit this is a photography blog so we're going to stop diverging.  Okay, one more divergance.  Here's photo of Alex's (Alan "I layout for all discs" Tang's brother) baby.

 (Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/3.2, 1/80, ISO 800)

Baby photos have powerful effects, but I digress.  Anyway, back to where I was.  So I came to the conclusion that the God of Photography probably has his hand in my pocket, which I wasn't exactly about to deny.  After all, both this summer and the last I've found that I am generally throwing myself at anyone and everyone to whom I had the slightest rapport with would require the service.  Though there were still some things I would've thrown myself in front of a bus for metaphorically in terms of photos (Ekklesia, Quick Dumpers), pretty much everything else was largely secondary.  So thats how I decided to take it for the day.  I was going to make no concentrated effort to photograph anything.  At all.  Not even if it hit me in the face.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/400, ISO 400)

Okay, I wanted one shot of James as he was taking warm-up pitches during a Turn 2 game... just in case.  So... yeah.  I have nothing beyond those three pictures.  Not even a picture of Albert on his 25th birthday.  Instead I had lunch with some ETers, got destroyed by some more ETers in Uno, watched Turn 2 win their first SNSP game of the night only to have the second game canceled due to lightning, and then hung out with Albert and a few others at a Pho place with a few assorted Turn 2'ers afterwards.  

That was my day.  Barely any photos at all... and I wouldn't change a thing.

Day 226: The Beatitudes

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 145mm, f/3.5, 1/640, ISO 1600)

This is it.  The final game of the regular season... after the break.

Day 225: The Home Stretch

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/60, ISO 200)

Things have been a bit slow in the last few blog posts.  Worry not, we're nearing the second half of the month, which turned out toe be quite the busy one.  Don't be fooled by the whiteboard.  A lot happened after August 23, with a lot of it being CCSA.  More to come.

Day 224: Sara Chan Thursday

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~200mm, f/4, 1/800, ISO 200)

It's actually Practice Thursday... with a twist!  Sara Chan came back!  Who's this you might ask?  Well, in her own words she'd describe her self as:

She is Sara Chan, and she plays catcher. 

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 160mm, f/4, 1/400, ISO 400)

Ekklesia's top-notch catcher left the team towards the end of the season last year, to go teach English in China.  She was back in town and decided to drop by (rather unexpectedly for most of us) during practice.  Woot!  The good news is, she would be around for the next two weeks.  The bad news was that she'd be leaving again for another year to resume teaching. 

Despite having not playedsoftball for over a year, she seemed to grasp things together pretty quickly, once again taking the field in the position that made her famous: catcher.  Just another practice, made a little bit more special by her presence.  Alas, at the time of this post, she is probably back in China where internet access is somewhat restricted, so she may not read this post for quite some time.  Hopefully, we'll see her on the field in the next few years!  It's hard to replace a spirited player like her.

Meanwhile, also hung around shooting the infielders as they went through a drill on dealing with short grounders.  Pretty much sat in the same position and just ripped bursts as they went through the motions.  Some pretty interesting results, to say the least.  Photos below:

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~140mm, f/4, 1/500, ISO 400)

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 130mm, f/3.5, 1/400, ISO 500)

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 145mm, f/4, 1/400, ISO 500)

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 160mm, f/3.2, 1/500, ISO 640)

Both infield and outfield were drilling pretty hard in preparation for this Saturday, in which Ekklesia's rescheduled game was due to take place against the long-time CCSA veterans from Bridle Trail Baptist Church (BTBC - That's right, the same church as Themelios!) Beatitudes.  More on that soon!

Day 223: Backblogging

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/1.8, 1/30, ISO 400)

T'was my day off, and I was scrambling to get through posts to get to the Formosan posts, that would end up taking several days.  Not much else to it... just a lot of editing and a lot of typing.

Day 222: More Edits

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2, 1/50, ISO 400)

Same ol' stuff.  You know... editing and what not.  By the looks of it, was still going through Formosan Day 1 photos... during the afternoon! :-o  

Well, you all know how that turned out so... no sense regurgitating the facts.  :)  Keepin' it short.

Day 221: Super Ultimate Mondays

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~160mm, f/2.8, 1/250, ISO 3200)

What makes it Super Ultimate Mondays you might ask?  The answer: Quick Dumpers winning. Volleyball!  Okay... I couldn't resist poking fun at that. :~) More after the break.

Day 220: In-Line

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 200mm, f/2.8, 1/500, ISO 800)

August 8th.  Originally had plans to attend the Taste of Danforth with a handful of friends, but it seems that was not to be (despite advance planning) as life took it's course and a couple folks got sidelined for various reasons.  Thus, Plan B.  Enter Turn 2. 

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~200mm, f/2.8, 1/500, ISO 800)

Got to the park fairly early.  I had made a run to a bookstore downtown to pick up Joe McNally's other book, The Hot Shoe Diaries and occupied myself whilst waiting for the games to kick off.  Having only really shot in the CCSA and during the Formosan tournament (where umpires were generally fairly relaxed on where photographers stand), I figured I'd take up my usual position along the base line in front of the dugout. 

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~100mm, f/2.8, 1/500, ISO 3200)

Bad call.  Mr. Grumpy Umpy (who doesn't seem to take all that much of a liking to Turn 2 from what I've seen) decided to shoo me off the field and restrict me to the dugout.  I wasn't really in the mood to cause a scene, so whatever.  You make do with what you're given, and quite frankly, shooting through the opening in the dugout is better than shooting through a fence.  Eventually, for whatever reason he came by and told me I could shoot further down the line.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~160mm, f/2.8, 1/500, ISO 800)

When it became clear where I was permitted to shoot from though, I was kind of wondering if he was trying to get me killed or something.  Essentially, I'd have to stand fairly close to first base... and while I have a lot of faith in the generally higher-calibre SNSP players, first baseman still do occasionally miss throws.  Guess who'd be standing right around that area?  Me.  Personally, I wasn't really looking forward to be on the receiving end of a laser beam throw without a glove.  Common sense told me my skull didn't make for a good glove either.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 185mm, f/2.8, 1/500, ISO 800)

Such is the case as to why all my photos are from the first base line.  I cheated as much as I could towards home plate, for the sake of my own safety.  As expected, first base did experience a couple missed throws, but I'm still here to write about it with no bruise (or worse) to show for it.  

Oh, softball was played too.  Turn 2 tied their first game and won their second.  

More to come.