SOU's Tyler Thomas squares off against Greg Alvarez of Menlo College

I’m a big fan of Sumo Wrestling. I have attended live matches about a half dozen times while in Japan, and I watch Youtube videos of every tournament as the tournaments progress (every other month in Japan). However, I’ve never watched “regular” wrestling–not on TV, not live–until this past weekend.

This past weekend I watched my first ever non-sumo wrestling at SOU. The #2 ranked Raiders easily rolled over their opponents from Menlo College.

Wrestling is a horrible sport for photography. There is one light in the center of the mat, and the rest of the arena is darkness. I took a few hundred photos, but ended up deleting about 90% of them.

Posted on January 30th, 2012 under only in ashland, people. Tags: Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II, Southern Oregon University, wrestling. Comments Off on SOU Wrestling

MC D.L. Richardson

Rogue Valley Gospel Choir

Mary Ferrell is the founder and Executive Director of Maslow Project

Rogue Valley Gospel Choir

Posted on January 19th, 2012 under only in ashland, people. Tags: Ashland Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Celebration, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II. Comments: 2

Terriel Thomas takes a shot against Concordia University

SOU is taking on Oregon Tech tomorrow night if you are in town. I took today’s photo last week.

Posted on January 6th, 2012 under only in ashland, people. Tags: basketball, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II, Southern Oregon University, sports. Comments Off on Southern Oregon University Men’s Basketball

Jordan Highland with the second of his three slams on the night

Posted on January 2nd, 2012 under only in ashland, people. Tags: basketball, jordan highland, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II, Raider Athletics, Southern Oregon University, sports, sports photography. Comments Off on Slam dunk

Posted on December 31st, 2011 under nature, only in ashland. Tags: deer, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II. Comments Off on More backyard deer

I have always had problems photographing the moon. Even the fullest of moons are difficult to have, with details, in any photo of something else. Night photography frequently involves leaving the shutter open for a few seconds and then things get even worse. The moon ends up looking more like lens flare than the highlight of your photo.

A couple weeks back we had an eclipse. I didn’t stay up for it, even though the sky was clear, because it wasn’t scheduled to happen until 4 a.m. and by then I thought the moon may be behind a mountain if I tried to view it from home. Even if it wasn’t, it would have been on the non-window side of my house which meant I would have had to go outside in below freezing temperatures in order to get a peak. So, instead, I took this photo much earlier in the evening from inside my house.

Contrary to intuition, leaving your shutter open longer to photograph the moon is a bad idea. A fast shutter speed and low ISO are key to achieving any kind of detail. I shot this photo (which has been significantly cropped) at 200mm at f/2.8 with an exposure of just 1/2500 of a second.

Posted on December 28th, 2011 under nature. Tags: moon, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II, nikon d7000, photography. Comments: 1

One of the main reasons I recently picked up a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II lens was to photograph Ellie playing volleyball. However, it takes fantastic portraits in low light as well. The only lighting for this photo was Ellie’s computer screen and a distant light in the hallway. The room was actually quite dark.

Posted on December 23rd, 2011 under people. Tags: ellie, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II, photography, portraits. Comments Off on Ellie

Time to saddle up the sleigh. If Santa is missing any deer to guide his sleigh tomorrow night, he can find this one in my backyard all ready and rested to go.

Posted on December 22nd, 2011 under nature, only in ashland. Tags: deer, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II, nikon d7000, wildlife. Comments Off on Let the reindeer games begin…

Ashland Middle School Concert Band - winter concert at Ashland High School

Last week Ellie performed in the Ashland High School Theatre. Every seat was taken and we ended up way in the back. At 200mm (no crop) I was able to capture a bit of the action.

Posted on December 20th, 2011 under only in ashland, people. Tags: ellie, music, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II. Comments Off on AMS Concert Band