Happy Accidents with the Sprinkler

Last Saturday we were going to go on a bike ride, but yours truly busted a tube trying to top it off to full pressure (accident 1). So we hung out at home, played at the park, and eventually set up the sprinkler in the driveway.

What self-respecting papa/photographer would miss an opportunity like this? While Leah was happily running around the sprinkler I grabbed the camera with the 45-200mm lens and started taking shots from different angles, near and far, focusing on the water or her face, all with essentially no planning.

Happy accidents:
--I put the sprinkler in the sun, but because it was much darker everywhere else I got excellent isolation of the subject and the water. In the yard I wouldn't have been able to do this because the background would have been well illuminated.
--Leah was essentially back lit the whole time, which meant that her face was in shadow. Somehow (and some help from Lightroom) this didn't pose a big problem, and it created a neat effect with her face more implied than clear and thus the focus was more on the water.
--The colors in the water! The differences between the blur on 1/320 sec and the freezing at 1/1600 sec! Talk about excellent luck, as I had this on aperture priority mode the whole time so the camera was picking the shutter speed to maintain exposure.

Maybe I'm lucky. Maybe I'm getting some photographic instincts (the whole "Blink"idea"). Maybe I'm the blind squirrel finding the acorn over and over again. Anyway, here are some of the best images.

Hands in the sprinkler - what fun!
ISO 200  45mm  f/4.0  1/320 sec

Trying to catch the water
ISO 200  45mm  f/4.0  1/800 sec

Thirsty work
ISO 200  115mm  f/4.9  1/1600 sec

Go play in the sprinkler, fools!
--Alex

Bikes on the square

Leah and I head up to the Farmer's Market each Saturday AM, but one morning we took a stroll down MLK boulevard to do a little sight seeing. While Leah gazed with awe at a firetruck, I took a few shots of a line of red, rental bikes.

First off, here's the full-color jpeg that I started with:

ISO 200  20mm  f/3.2  1/320sec

Cropping. A bit of lighting adjustment. Switch to monochrome - I think this is a much more interesting image. At first it was the color that caught my eye, but it's the pattern that's most interesting. I wish I could have take 10 more like this, really isolating the wheel.

Bikes off the Capital Square

Toodles