Softball and slideshow fun

-UPDATE.. music on the slideshow is gone. Having it play automatically is just annoying.

Softball league players are a pretty devoted bunch with scheduled games pushing well past midnight some nights. A friend of mine is one of those.

Sooo... after the lovely wife was off to sleep, I decided I should be just as dedicated to my creative outlet as the players are to their athletic diversion. Off to the softball fields for me.

Creative problem challenge #1- I only had a short zoom with me... Canon 40D with the 24-70 was all I brought home from work. This is not ideal for shooting softball. Really.

Creative problem challenge #2 - This place has some massively thick chain-link fencing all the way around the place. Even shooting wide open, if you are not zoomed all the way to 70mm and centered in a fence hole, the fence shows up a lot.

Personality problem challenge bonus ... I only knew one of the players, so I'm the weirdo hanging around with a nice camera hanging around snapping pictures. If this isn't a challenge for you, that is great. For me, it is a stretch to not allow limitations on what I want to do creatively while being watched by strangers.

What can we learn from this?

Creative challenge #1... Plays from anywhere outside of about 50 feet away were not going to be very useful, so I focused on shooting batters and looking for ways to frame things. If I had brought the 70-200mm or 300mm, it would have been just like shooting a baseball game for work, and a few of the photos that I like here would have never happened.

Creative challenge #2... I tried to use the fence as a framing device with some shots that I kind of liked. Other than that.... it just makes life difficult. To eliminate the fence as much as possible, you have to put the end of the lens very close to the fence. That is scary when the replacement cost of the lens is high.

Personality challenge... well, I might have tried some different things if I knew more people there, but it was a good exercise in not being self-limiting.

Also... Zenfolio added music capability to their slideshows, so naturally I had to try it. Maybe the wrong mood for softball? I almost went for a hard rock song, but the free ones are pretty bad. Comments are welcome... If you think music actually adds anything to the viewing experience, let me know. Personally I often find music on websites to be very annoying, especially if the music starts automatically.

Don J.