My progression as a photographer

Well for my last blog post as a high school student I decided to talk about my career as a photographer in this program. I remember the first day of boot camp when I got yelled at for not bringing my memory card...oops! That was just the beginning. Over the last two years, I've shot countless sporting events and stayed up way past my bed time shooting for TOP or whatever else. But I wouldn't change any moment. I've definitely realized that I am an event photographer...mostly sports. I like capturing moments in time and people's emotions. I've recently come to the conclusion that I am not a creative/artsy photographer. I just can't see objects the way others can. I give a huge shout out to those who worked on still life. Even though we didn't place, those images were fantastic and they put so much effort into them. As you can see by my last few posts, still life is not my thing. Anyway, I've also been thinking a lot about my skills/talents as a photographer. I'm obviously not the best photographer in the class. I've only won one award and that was my junior year for ATPI. I'm not the best, but I've tried to shoot as much I could for the publications staff. Anyway, I hope to continue in college even though I don't own a camera. Hopefully Claire will let me borrow hers :) I also want to look into the newspaper, yearbook or the magazine at Rhodes. Photography has been my safe haven these last two years and I'm certainly gonna miss it.

Morgan Walker

So today, well actually it was May 31st, the class got a very pleasant surprise. Morgan Walker came to talk to us! She talked for like all of second period was it was really fun to listen to all her stories and experiences. She talked about first going to college and getting a job as a photographer. I think this really helped the few that are leaving for college and want to pursue photography as a career. Even though I do not want to do photography as a career, it was still good to listen to her talk about because, if gear is available, I would like to still shoot events and such in college. She also talked about her internship experiences which was very interesting because she had a lot of cool stories about the work she did. Even though it was kinda sad, I liked hearing about the murder/fire scene she had to shoot because I've always wanted to hear first hand how people interact with others who are going through a time like that. After she talked about her and everything she has done, she looked at some of our TOP pictures. Although, she didn't comment on my pictures personally, I really like getting her opinion on certain pictures. I hope the juniors were listening because I think some of her comments could help them next year when choosing pictures for the portfolios. Overall, I think Morgan's visit was good for the class. Her stories were very interesting and she definitely gave some insight into the world of photography outside of high school for those who are looking into it.

This was kinda fun

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ISO: 1600   f/20.0   2.0sec

So after I gave up on the jar picture, I googled still life pictures to try to get some inspiration. I saw a picture kinda like the ones above so I decided to recreate it. So I put a book up against a wall and covered everything with printer paper to get a white background. I sat up the forks and balanced the egg on them (which was probably the hardest part) and then just played around. In the first picture I wanted to see how it would look when I lit it from the side. It looked kinda cool but my favorite pictures were when I lit it from above or behind the egg. Which is the bottom picture. I really like the lighting on the egg in this one because you can see the detail of the egg and the outline from where I cracked it. I took a lot of different pictures just playing around with how I lit it which was fun. I tried it from the front, sides, and just all around. Its definitely not a good picture or award-winning worthy but it was good practicing ways to light the egg.

I was sick this day :/

Still Life Fail

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Okay, so I took camera gear home this weekend so I could take some pictures for my blog and I wanted to attempt some still life and bring out my creative side. We I started looking around my house for some cool objects and I thought this could be neat. I forgot to pack a flash so I tried painting with light with a flashlight I had at home. I wanted to light the inside and I just hoped it would look really cool because I didn't really know what else to do. So, I held the flashlight above the opening of the jar and just circled it a few times to light it. This was the best picture I took but I don't like it at all. Its just awkward. I definitely need some help in still life. I just can't imagine pictures like other people can. 

We're so morbid

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S/O to Matt Prieskorn for posing in this picture even though it was past his bedtime. 

So, Claire, Rush, and I went to Caroline's house the Sunday night before all these pictures had to be done. We wanted to take a picture of the creeper (Rushing) terrorizing someone on the staircase. We didn't exactly know what we were gonna do going into it but we made it work. So we started (at like 9 I might add) by dressing up rushing like a man..which was hilarious. We raided Caroline's brother's closets and found the perfect clothing..though the angle we decided to use didn't even show her clothes. Anyway, we started to set this picture up and was Matt for the set up. Caroline was taking the picture while straddling her staircase and Claire was holding the flash that lit the victim. We had some issues getting rushing's shadow just right. We had a flash on a light stand behind her and we tried many different lengths behind her until we found the right once.. which was rushing on like the third step and the light stand as far back as we could it from her. So we thought we had everything figured out so we called Matt in there to take the picture. However, we started having issues with all the flashes going off at the same time. Claire was underneath Rush lighting Matt with a flash and I was right behind Caroline  with a flash used a trigger so Claire's flash and the one behind Rush would go off because we were working with master and slave because there were no syncs. However, after like 15 or 20 different tries all the lights went off and we got this picture. YAY! 

Bloody Hands

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So after we took the picture in the staircase it was like 10:30 and all four of us were extremely exhausted. We wanted to take a picture of rush creeping on some victim through the screen door or something like that. BUT we were so incredibly tired that we decided to take a picture of the phantom washing his hands with "blood" all in the sink. So I stood on Caroline's stool while Claire continually poured chocolate syrup into the sink. Caroline pointed a flash from the right side to light the sink. This only took like 10 minutes because we thought this was pretty good. The thing we focused on a lot is that the faucet wasn't super awkward and in this picture it was actually smooth and cool looking..well sorta. Another thing we kinda struggled with was that the sink was sometimes washed out. But with the flash to the side and my angle we made it look not so bad. This picture is kinda awkward but it was all we could do. 

I almost got stabbed...

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Okay, so this picture also took almost 2 hours like the window one. and I was "tied" to the tree the entire time. We loosely tied the bandana around my hands so I could get out of it if I wanted but I still had to hug a tree most of the time. I was really glad I wore my TOMS so I could put them under my knees or else I would have gone insane. When we first started we were taking the picture at a different angle. Originally we didn't want my face in it so we tried to take in with me directly behind the tree and josh to the side where you could still she the knife and his face but it didn't work because the knife wasn't very noticeable.  So then we decided to shoot it at this angle. It ended up working a lot better. So we had Kenzie..i think..hold a flash behind him. Also, we had a flash set up to light Josh in front of him. We also had one to light me as well. Oh, and the most important difficulty we had was that we had to shoot in master and slave because we didn't have any syncs. It really wasn't that difficult but we just weren't used to it. Smith didn't like the fact that my face was in the picture all scared like but everyone else did so we used it. I think everyone who came out to help us learned at least a little bit about lighting and everyone definitely helped us out. It took 7 people to take this picture and everyone was doing something at all times.

Portrait

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So Caroline took this picture but I helped so I wanted to blog about it. We took the picture in the studio because we just needed a black background. We had a light behind him and to give the rim light. We also had a flash to light his face from the right. I held the reflector under his chin to help light his face. I'm glad that we were able to light his eyes because I think it adds something to the picture.  This picture was definitely not as hard as the others but it looks really cool. It also didn't take very long since we knew exactly what we wanted and we are used to the studio lights. I loved that we used this picture for the opening picture in the portfolio. It illustrates the creepiness of the phantom killer and it was just a good starter to the story.

TTDSD

ISO: 200   f/8.0   1/50sec

This picture. Oh dear heavens. It took 2 hours to do. We definitely didn't expect it to take that long but it turned out pretty good. When Claire, Kenzie, Josh and I all met at the school we decided we should take this picture since there was only 4 of us and this only called for two people in the picture. One or two more people would have been helpful but we made it work. We needed a large window with a chair or couch in front of it so I volunteered my house. This window was complicated to say the least. We went through so many different lighting ways, I can't even remember them all. At first we wanted Josh to be dark but have a rim light around him but that didn't work so we put the flash to the side of him and lit her whole body. Inside the house, we had a flash set up to go off towards Kenzie to light her. At first we had the lamp above Kenzie on to add a little flare but after a while we decided to turn it off because it was distracting. So then we decided to have a flash go off and point it down on her. Once we got the lighting right we took our picture and everyone was happy. Then my dog decided to walk through the living room so we decided we wanted to take one with him in it. He cooperated for one picture. only one. BUT it was the one we used for TOP. This was the first picture with him but after the next two pictures where he didn't cooperate we stopped trying. Even though this picture took 2 stinkin hours, I learned a lot about lighting and stuff. I was very glad to take this picture.

DISNEY!

I was super excited when all the drummers in my group decided to play cadences on these drums in Animal Kingdom. Of course they decided to do it when the camera was in my bag and I had issues trying to get it out. Anyway, I got it out and took pictures of them drumming. It was kinda difficult to get good angles of the drummers because of the crowd that was surrounding them. I didn't know how to work the camera really well so some of their hands were kinda blurry. But this one turned out pretty good. They also didn't drum very long so I couldn't get as many pictures as I wanted. However, I did get about 10 or 15. I was very lucky I was with them when they did this because its a fun picture and not just one of students just chillin in line.

This picture was taken in Epcot on this ride where you go super fast in the car around the building. While in line they had these computers where people could design a car. In this picture, Cavan was designing his car while Kate and Angela watched. Taking this picture was kinda painful and a little awkward. There wasn't much space between each computer, but in order to get his face, I needed to sqeeze between them. My butt may be small but it wasn't that small. Even though I had to sqeeeze, the picture came out. The thing I don't like is that its yellow. I tried to fix it but all the colors in the picture are just weird because of the lighting. I wish I could have gotten further back so all of his head and more of the computer screen could have been in the picture but that was the best I could do at the time.

Okay, so it was the last day and I had some pictures but I didn't have a whole lot. So I posed this picture. Well kinda... They were actually in a circle talking but they looked super boring. So I told them to argue or look more involved in the conversation. and they did. thank goodness. Even though it was posed, this is how everyone looked liked the entire trip. We argued quite a lot. This picture is kinda awkward, but they used it in the yearbook so it was atleast useful. Because they were in a circle and there was 50 million people around this was one of the only decent angles to get.

Baseball

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 ISO: 400   f/4.0    1/3200sec

ISO: 400    f/4.0    1/3200sec

I'm terrible at posing

Okay, so we haven't processed the pictures from when Claire, Caroline, Rush and I took senior pictures but I still wanted to talk about the whole experience. The four of us decided we wanted to take our seniors pictures together so we wouldn't have to pay for some done and theirs would be a lot of angles. However, we soon realized how awkward we truly are. We didn't know how to pose people properly and so we just went with it. We also didn't have a flash or reflector so it was even better! Not really.. We didn't have a lot of time to work with since the sun was going down  so we didn't get a lot of time to really work with what we had to make them better. When processing, we realized that we didn't really pay attention to the way our bodies were positioned towards the sun. I noticed that some of the pictures had harsh shadows. Also, I noticed that in some of the pictures we didn't notice our shoulders...like slouching and lack of clothes. Basically this whole experience taught me to pay more attention to the way people are positioned and the way the sun is on them. It definitely helped for when I took Paige's senior pictures. Overall the pictures turned out pretty well and I think we did pretty good considering the circumstances.

Miss THS

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Paige's Senior Pictures

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ISO: 400   f/5.0   1/320sec

Birthday Party

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So, I chose to blog about this picture because it showed pretty much everything in one picture. The thing that was really hard to work with was the fact that it was sunny and blue outside but the walls were yellow.  So the color balance was off in almost every picture. However, other than that shooting this was pretty easy. It was kinda boring and awkward, but I did get paid! Whoo! I basically had to do what I do at school events and take pictures of people talking and hugging and stuff. So about this picture, it shows the struggle with the lighting. It also shows the table that people kinda congregated around because that's where the food was.

Soccer

ISO: 1000   f/4.0   1/250sec

This was probably one of the most irritating assignments ever.  Not because it was hard to shoot, but because the stupid mono pod would attach to the bigma therefore we had to ghettofy it and use duct tape. Well that wasn't too bad, but it didn't help that the momo pod kept slipping down and it wouldn't stay tall enough for me. But other than the struggle with that, the game wasn't bad. I'm not very good at shooting with flash though. All my pictures were kinda yellow-orangeish looking. But this was one of the better pictures from the game. I like it because the ball is stopped and Alex is in focus. It also has some action going on between the two players which made it a little more intense. I'm not very good at soccer, but I think this was an alright picture.

The Godfather

ISO: 640   f/4.0   1/50sec

I have a habit of taking assignments that involve taking pictures of food. This is like my second or third time to do so. This was another newspaper assignment..that they waited until the last minute to assign i might add. But anywho, the person who assigned the photo wanted McAlister's somewhere in the background but I couldn't place the sandwich appropriately to where a sign would be visible so I placed the cup of tea behind the plate. The lighting was super weird inside the restaurant so I had to try a few different placements.  Once I positioned it here, it was a success!

Jonathon Asher

ISO: 100    f/5.0   1/500

Thank you newspaper staff for waiting until the last minute to assign photo assignments...yet again. Amy needed a picture of Jonathon Asher (and Karlie Harmon which Caroline took) playing tennis, but they just needed it from the waist up..which is kinda difficult and it was insanely sunny. Anyway, it wasn't too hard of an assignment to just get him hitting the ball. This picture is alright, it definitely could have been much better though. I wish I would have noticed that the fence background thing was sharp because I wish it would have been a little more bokaey. But this wasn't too bad for the assignment.

Track

ISO: 400   f/5.0   1/2500

Okay, so first off it was SO COLD at this track meet, but I was still really excited to shoot it. I got there pretty early to shoot the field events.  However, I was the only one shooting at the time so it was hard to get everyone's events because, of course, are people always went at the same time. But I did the best I could until Caroline finally got there. I took this picture of high jump hoping to get one like the one of Wynden on the wall. This is the one Smith liked because her butt was right on the bar. Unfortunately, her face isn't in focus...the stupid pole is. Just my luck. And also, the cars and "mean-mugging" guy in the background are really distracting. I almost always pay close attention to the background but I guess I failed to do so in this picture. This was one of those assignments that came with some pressure because it was a one time chance and I was the only one shooting. I did my best even though the yearbook didn't want any of the pictures I took.

Single Light Source Photography....

....aka painting with light

ISO: 200   f/7.1   6.0sec

A bunch of us (Claire, Carlie, Caroline, Rush, and I) took this class because we thought we would learn a lot about lighting. but we were wrong. It was a painting with light class. and we definitely know how to do that. So the entire time he was trying to teach us something we already knew so it was kind of annoying. I can't remember who took this picture because we just took turns on the same camera but we tried to make the best of it and had a little fun. 

And February 25 and February 27

Yes, I did combine blog dates...I hope that's okay. I did this because for the past three days, all I've done is stuff for Jostens. I think I could burn CDs and print pictures in my sleep. I've been helping Claire throughout this process so she wouldn't go completely insane because of how many pictures we entered. 158 to be exact. I guess I didn't realize how much work went into entering these pictures on a large scale. Last year the printers didn't work so we just entered photos that were already printed from ATPI portfolio. But this year, we printed like crazy. For the past few class periods and for three hours thursday night, the printers were continuously going. It did feel good to get everything done and now all we have to do is mail them in. I do have this thought about all the work I did... If I don't win an award, at least I helped someone win.

Brianna's soccer

When we went to ATPI there was a soccer game that friday night that HAD to be shot. However, everyone was out of town. Even the people who weren't going to ATPI were out of town. So we asked Brianna if she could shoot the game for us. The next week I had to process the pictures for her. And they were really good...

 ISO: 1000   f/2.8    1/400sec

This was one of my favorites. The ball and Lyndsey are really sharp in focus. I didn't have to do hardly anything while processing because they were so in focus. It was a tad underexposed but at least they were in focus. The only thing that bothers me about this picture is that there is someone right behind her that kinda takes away from Lyndsey. 

ISO: 1000   f/2.8   1/500sec

Its about the same thing as the one above about the focus and what not. I'm super jealous that she hasn't picked up a camera in almost a year and she took pictures that were this good. 

BIG 72

So a few weeks ago we did the BIG 72 video contest. And we worked REALLY  hard. And we thought it was a good video. And one of the other ones was terrible. And we got last. LAST! 

Anyway, we did the video about immigration (that was the theme) and the story line went a little like this: there were four people immigrating to Texas and it was a short video about their troubles and adventures. We spent all day the first part of the day shooting all the video. We had two cameras going at one time trying to get a bunch of different shots to add complexity to the video. I was mainly in charge of making sure we got every shot, and I wrote down all the good shots so it would save time when we were editing.
I learned something that night when we were editing. Teenage girls get a little delusional at night when they have been working on something all day. I'm really surprised Smith didn't kill us. BUT we eventually got it done. It took like 20 hours but we did it.
We did have one problem that I would like to address:
We missed a shot. and very important one at that. So now there is a black spot in the middle of the video where they were supposed to go to sleep. We definitely glittered a terd on that one.
However, we didn't have as many problems as we would have if we wouldn't have planned as well as we did. I was really glad that we planned out every single shot and had a game plan for the entire day.
Even though we were robbed with the outcome, it was a good experience in which everyone learned a lot. 

probably my last basketball game

ISO: 1250   f/4.0   1/200sec

Well this was probably last basketball game to shoot, and I got a decent picture...of the other team. When Smith walked by he did his whole "yuhh!" phrase so I guess its a pretty good picture. During this game, I wasn't getting too many pictures. Every time they came to my end of the court, they were only there for like two seconds so I wasn't able to get a whole lot of our team when they were on offense. But during the second half, I was trying to look for good defensive plays and I was waiting for our team to turn around so I could get their faces but when they didn't, I saw how good the picture would be even though it wasn't our team. When I processed, I couldn't figure out how to crop it without making it awkward, but then smith told be to make it square. I didn't have to much correcting except to bring up the exposure a tad bit. 

Thank you so much for wearing this.

ISO: 640   f/4.5   1/30sec

So this was the glorious day Smith decided to wear his kilt. During the scratch meeting, Rush asked me to take pictures of him talking. And let me tell you, that wasn't too easy. Smith makes weird faces when you take pictures of him talking. (no offense smith) I liked this one because it looked like he was teaching because he's pointing the marker at something and the photo assignment page was up..even though no one is gonna know what that is.

Paxton Venable

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I can't remember which publication requested that this picture be taken but it had to be of Paxton with Ms. Fruge while they were studying for Literary Criticism UIL..or something like that. Well I went to Ms. Fruge one day after school when they were supposed to have practice but she didn't come. So the next day, I went and got her out of class and took her to Ms. Fruge's room to take this picture. They wanted a horizontal picture of them looking at all of the stuff they have while they study for whatever its called. I guess this picture isn't too bad..its not like you can do a whole lot with an assignment like this. I tried to make it a little "bokaey" in the background so they would pop a tad bit. I'm glad that they weren't awkward because they actually seem like they are enjoying what they are doing. 

Ensemble Practice

So we were in Smith's room after school getting ready for ATPI when someone called Rush asking if someone could take pictures of band students practicing for the contest they had the next day. So I volunteered to go. However, this was the only group practicing. So I proceeded to take quite a bit of pictures. 

 ISO: 500   f/5.6   1/25sec

I tried to be a little creative with this picture but I don't think it worked. I wanted to get all three of them but I also wanted to show the music they were working on. I don't like this picture because the guy's saxophone is kinda awkward looking especially since its kinda growing out of Olivia. However, I don't think its too terribly bad, I probably could have just done it better. 

ISO: 500   f/4.0   1/25sec

This is another picture but from above. I tried taking one of all of them at eye level but you couldn't see their faces because of the music stands. I don't exactly like the above shot but at least you can see everyone's faces. Since this was the only group practicing, I wanted to take a lot of pictures to make sure they yearbook staff member got what they wanted. It was a little room so I couldn't get too creative but I did what I could. 

Acceptance Letter

ISO: 400   f/2.8   1/3200sec

I honestly don't understand why my settings are the way they are. The ISO should have been lower because it was sunny outside. But this was my bad image of the set and that's why I wanted to blog about it. This was the first spot I put her and when I took the picture I noticed the sharp shadows and the shadow going across the ground. After I noticed this, I moved her to the right some. This assignment was one of the many headshots multiple people had to take of seniors with the "unique college" acceptance letters and this one one the worst of the three that I took. I must have had a big brain fart because this should have been better since it was a headshot.

Basketball..again.

This was the JV boys basketball game against Marshall. 

 ISO: 1250   f/5.6    1/160sec

I can't decide if I like this picture or not. I like how our guy has his intense face going on while he is trying to get the ball from the other guy. However, I don't like how I cut off the other guy's leg. Also, and I'm being really picky about this one, but I don't like the player behind our guy's arm. To me its just distracting.

ISO: 1250   f/5.6   1/200sec

So with this picture I tried to recreate that picture that I had last year that went into the TOP portfolio, but I tried it from a different angle. However, I don't really like this angle. I cut off their legs a super awkward angle and I don't have room to crop since I barley got their fingers in the shot. I definitely could have made this picture better if I would have paid attention to what I was actually getting in the shot. 

More Basketball

ISO: 1000   f/3.5   1/200sec

So this was the varsity boys basketball game against North Caddo. I actually more pictures than I usually get when I shoot basketball, so I guess it was a pretty good game. This picture, I have a love-hate relationship going on. I like that Red is in the air and in focus but number 4 is really distracting and irritating. One thing that I need to work on is trying not to get random people in the shot when I have a main action going on. Maybe if I would have zoomed in a little more then it would have been better. 

High Key

This was my first time working with high key settings. I didn't set it up because someone had already done it but I did learn the jist of what was going on...pretty much just where the lights go. Two on the sides pointed to the backdrop and one behind me with the big umbrella. 

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So yearbook is doing a story with multiple teachers and what their "famous quote," I guess you could  call it, is. Mrs. Nix's quote is about how her students will fail in life and never amount to anything so we wanted to make her look very sassy. We did the hands on this hip to give off the "sassy" impression.

ISO: 160    f/8.0    1/250sec

The yearbook is also doing a story on one person from every grade and their special talent or story. This is a picture of Madison Maynard who is a freshman. She is a very elite gymnast who is training to one day possibly go to the olympics. This is the second picture I've taken of her this year, but the first one she was able to do a pose. however, she recently had surgery to take something out of her leg and put it in her arm. so they had to change the story a tad bit to focus more on her injury. We wanted to show her gymnast side, thats why she has her jacket and medal, but we also wanted to focus on her injury too so we told her to lean on her crutches. 

Pine Tree Basketball

ISO: 1000   f/4.5   1/250sec

I finally understand how to set up the new lighting! The first time I had to set up the lights by myself, I didn't have the right equipment. The person who packed all the gear only put 4 pocket wizards in the case, but we need 5. However, I made use of what we had and the lighting looked somewhat alright. Anyway, in this experience I shot varsity, and when I got there the lights were already set up. However, I looked at all the settings to understand exactly what was going on. The lights on the sides aren't pointed directly at each other, which I thought at the beginning, but instead they are pointed a little more towards the court. And the light on the side of court is pointed toward the ceiling of the court. 

This was the best picture I had from this game. I liked it because he is really sharp and the ball is in focus! and also the ball is in his hand.. not awkwardly in the middle of his hand and the ground. It also shows his face and number. It also shows him being all neat and running in front of all the other players being the awesome Kevin he is. 

Girls Basketball

 ISO: 1250    f/4.0    1/200sec

The lighting I had to set up for this game was not good. The person who packed the gear only packed 4 pocket wizards and we needed 5. Anyway, I made the best of the situation and did what I could. I set up two lights pointed at the ceiling. One on each side of the court. This picture I had to crop kinda close to her right foot because I think I accidentally got the lightstand in the picture so I had to get closer than I wanted. Also, in this picture the color balance was really off. It looked extremely orange, and it still kinda does. But I like that she has the ball in her hands and that she is ahead of the other team.

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I wish this picture was better. One I cut off number 3's hands and number 20, Chandler.. i think, looks a little weird. Anyway, Claire said she liked it so I decided to keep it. Chandler was about to shoot at the goal but number 3 was obviously in her way. One thing that really bothers me about this picture is the robot looking girl in the background. I tried to find a way to crop her out but I couldn't find a way to do it. 

ISO: 1000   f/4.0   1/250sec

This picture cracks me up. The girl from the opposite team looks really strange because of how she is jumping in the air. What I like about it is that they are in focus and the ball is sharp too. Laiken's face even shows that the other girl isn't even phasing her because she is focused on either passing the ball or shooting towards the goal. I almost cut off the other girl's hand though. I really need to pay attention to every aspect of my pictures and not just the person who is the main focus.