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Photo: Live music featured aboard a sunset cocktail cruise with the Pacific Whale Foundation.

One of my shots from our 2nd Maui visit back in ‘07 while out on the water. With all the great views of the shoreline, the resorts, mountains and other boats on the water, not to mention the islands of Molokai and Lanai at sunset, there was more than enough to shoot if you could handle your viewfinder along with the motion of the ocean.

I broke away from photographing the gorgeous vistas back towards shore to frame this candid while the musician was playing. While I wasn’t happy with the placement of the microphone in front of his face – you did notice that, didn’t you – it wasn’t my place to ask him to move it.

The running joke here is that if I had moved to my right any further for this shot, I would have been doing underwater photography instead.

Photo: Rockford Ice Hogs goaltender Joe Fallon looks up at the scoreboard after letting in a late goal. Although it didn’t change the outcome of the game, goalies still hate getting beat.

The final hockey image from my theme here this week after an awesome shoot at the start of the week. This one was taken near the end of the game after Rockford gave up their final goal in their victory over the Wolves. Even if you weren’t at the game or knew the outcome, you can almost tell just be the look of this shot that something bad happened for this guy.

After all, photos are supposed to tell a story, right?

The Final Horn

As I alluded to, this is the last post in my little hockey mini-series here this week. I haven’t posted all the photos from this game on Flickr yet, and I still have plans to retool my Hockey Portfolio, but in the mean time, check out the hockey tag here at the blog to find the other photos from this week’s posts as well as those from the previous games I’ve shot at.

Enjoy,
– Kris

Photo: Chicago Wolves Captain Jason Krog on the attack in the offensive zone early in a match-up against the Rockford Ice Hogs.

As I eluded to yesterday, we had amazing seats to Sunday’s Wolves game against (our favorite) Ice Hogs. Only with seats like that would I be able to get a shot like the one above, which believe it or not, I managed to pull of in-camera without any cropping in post. Talk about great timing and a whole lot of luck (more of the latter, actually).

The image is a little noisy, and that’s because I had to shoot at ISO 800 to get some of the shutter speeds fast enough to freeze the action.  This one’s 1/320 sec. at f/5.6, which is as wide open as I can shoot with my 70mm-300mm telephoto zoom set anywhere passed about 200mm (this one was 240mm). I know there are really good noise reduction tools in Photoshop and as plug-ins, I just haven’t used them too much yet. I’ll certainly be revisiting this one in the future once my noise reduction skills improve over time.

New Gear Needed

It’s worth noting that the cameras I shoot these games with now – my Canon 20D and Canon Rebel XSi – and while they have served me well in so many capacities, shooting pass ISO 400 for sports is a bit of a stretch. So, the bad news is that I would have to upgrade my gear if I wanted to do this more often. The good news is that I have more options than I did before.

Both options are pricey, as it would be a matter of buy/renting faster glass to shoot at f/4 or upgrade to a full-frame DSLR. While I would absolutely drool over having a full-frame sensor like the Canon 5DMKII, it’s way out of my price range right now. But the good news is that the newer cameras like the Canon 7D (hopefully my birthday present) have advanced to the point where ISO 800, 1600 and even ISO 3200 in some cases have much less noise than my Rebel XSi of a year ago.

Shooting from the same seats with a 7D and possibly an upgrade (and rented) lens with a constant aperture of f/4 would be such a thrill. Who knows, maybe by next season.

It’s Hockey Week

This is only the first of about 20 images I pulled out of the pile from Sunday’s shoot for processing this week, so it’s certainly going to be a hockey themed week for sure. While I won’t post all 20 in a row, I’ll have a note at the end to highlight the photoset on Flickr where the rest will end up. So if you’re a puck head like me, put on the foil, lace ‘em up, and get ready for more of the greatest game in the world!

- Kris

Okay, so maybe I do take the occasional, impromptu portrait from time to time.

Continuing with the unofficial theme this week of sifting through previous Door County photos, this is from Sept. ‘08 and from brunch at the Inn at Cedar Crossing in Sturgeon Bay. It was the following morning after our 5th wedding anniversary the night before. Although both the previous and following years’ anniversaries were spent on Maui, that year’s getaway was still very nice.

Photo: Young, bundled up visitors take in the sunrise at Haleakala on a chilly February morning.

One of the many shots I took on our first sunrise visit to the Haleakala summit on Maui.

It was an amazing experience to say the least, and totally lived up to all the hype I had psyched myself up for.

I might be able to revisit Haleakala for the sunrise part of the Maui Photo Festival in two weeks, and should the opportunity present itself, I’m definitely going back.