This Photography Geek-Out Makes The Last Look Like A Hiccup

I met a guy a few weeks back, a semi-pro I suppose you could call him, who invited me to go and shoot at a track meet at Rice yesterday.

Visit my photo site to see the results.

Summary:
- All track meets should happen after 7pm in May. Weather was beautiful, nice breeze, few clouds.
- Cannon EOS-1D Mark II, nice camera.
- Above statement is understatement of the century.
- Photography Newbie + EOS-1D = gobs of bad photos
- As photography newbie hits the upswing of the learning curve, things get a lot better.
- Photogapher is super nice guy, die-hard photo nerd to the max, and is still learning- very encouraging for me to see
- He has lots of really expensive toys (lights, lenses, camera bodies) and he has offered to share and basically mentor
- I may get a chance to actually use above mentioned toys in studio setting
- Keeping day job, hopefully picking up lens money helping this guy out (this isn't his day job, either)

I'm still pinching myself. I know that 99% of a great picture is just BEING there, and I have previously just been where I normally go (home, park, work, school, freeway, etc.) so I was completely out of my element, and using a camera that I felt a PhD in Astrophysics might have some trouble getting used to. Yet I still managed to get some good captures. Sure, they are grainy. Sure, there's motion blur on loads of them (but, hey- I was shooting after dark!). Sure, they aren't the most inspirational in their composition, but with some cropping and tinkering with the brightness/contrast/color saturation I think I got some good ones!

*Squeeeeeeeee~*