I Wish I did Sports as a Kid

Hmm, probably one of my greatest regrets of both elementary and High School is not getting involved in sports more.

I've only gotten involved in them within the past year or so, and they have been rather light, such as competitive XC running (I've always been a runner but never ran competitions before). There's so many sports and things I wanted to try as a kid, such as Track and field, Soccer, Hockey, Swimming Biathlon, Skating, Competitive XC Skiing, etc... The list goes on. While I am active in my daily life, and enjoy many sporting and recreational activities, I think that I would have benefited nth physically and mentally from being involved in sports as a kid. I just wish I actually put my foot in the door, and gave it a shot.

Luckily, we humans can learn from our mistakes and continue into the future with a little lesson or two. I'm trying new things all the time now, and can't wait to sign up for some sports with my college next September!!!! (Plus a fun and active summer ahead, going to run a few marathons!).

First time at Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)

The other day, I was invited by my friend Kyle to his mixed martial arts club called "Empire MMA". While being a little nervous, I decided to accept his invitation to this new adventure.

As I stepped into the building, I was greeted by a tough, heavily tattooed man, yet he had an honest smile as he greeted all kids, teens and adults to the class. As I met up with my friend Kyle, the class began. I was surprised to see around thirty people already doing some kind of wrestling in the ring. They were all seniors practicing Jui-jit-sui.  As the seniors cleared out and we and our fellow beginners entered, our class began our intense warm up, and then proceeded to Muay Thai, otherwise known as traditional "kick boxing". 

Kyle was an excellent peer, as well as teacher. As the entire class practice it's movements and tactics, Kyle and I went over every single detail and scenario, he taught me both persuasion and form. The next few days that proceeded were full of body pains from stretched muscles that I never knew I had! It was a very positive experience for me, and just goes to show what fun can be had when you are spontaneous and try new things.

First Rink Shoot

Yesterday, I woke up bright and early before College and joined the AMAZING skaters at Mariposa. I know a few of them, and they said that they would be delighted to help out with my personal portfolio (and they knew they could get some cool shots too!).

The shoot started out with a very warm welcome from all the skaters on the ice. From young to old, their spirit was absolutely breathtaking, as they both trained, yet  played hard as well. They glided across the ice just like birds on a warm summer's day.

They were all excellent, and very photogenic. Camera wise, the rink is a mess trying to get a decent shot. The lighting is horrible and skaters move very fast, which is a terrible combination for photos. As I described to the skaters about the situation, they seemed surprised how hard it was. They pointed to the lights above and said that it was very bring in the rink. That maybe so to the human eye, but not to an SLR camera. Since the skaters were moving so fast, I had to change the shutter speed so it was going very fast (around 1/500 of a second) But since the shutter was moving faster (so they wouldn't be blurry) there was less light coming into the lens, so I had to raise the ISO (the sensitivity of the camera in regards to light), however, a greater ISO means more fuzziness, so I needed to find the right balance (which turned out to be a shutter speed of 1/500 and an ISO of around 800). I shot in both JPEG and RAW formats, so it would be easier to edit most shots.

 After just over an hour of fun, I believed I got my shots. I still cannot believe that such an amazing place is so near, yet I never spent time at the rink. A small yet important lesson learned.

In the end, the shots turned out, and many friends were made. I spent an hour or two fixing the salvageable shots up and uploaded them to Facebook for the skaters and my website. I learned that RAW makes it so I don't have to worry 'too' much about the lighting in the rink, however, I learned a lot in regards to both the camera (and different lenses and filters I used) as well as the social and editing aspects of photography.

I can't wait for next time!


All of the new photos can be found at http://www.henrybailliebrown.com/sports.html

An amazing practice.