Digital Convert

I kicked and screamed and resisted buying a digital camera as long as I could. I felt the technology just couldn't do what I needed to do for a reasonable price. Sure, I could have shelled out a couple grand for a digital SLR a few years back, but it really wasn't in my budget. Well, a couple of months ago I got asked to shoot this charity hockey tournament up in Seattle and knew I'd need to shoot like 10 games over the course of two days and the thought of dragging along enough film to do that wasn't really thrilling me. So I caved and bought a Canon Digital Rebel. It's the digital version of the camera I already have so all my lenses and stuff work on it. I played with it a little before I headed up to Seattle this past weekend but didn't have a chance to shoot any hockey with it before I went. I brought along some regular film as back up, but decided to take the gamble and just shoot with the digital. I shouldn't have worried. Some of the shots I got are unbelieveable. I cranked the speed up to 1600 and the results are crisp, clear images that I never would have gotten with 1600 speed film. Don't get me wrong, I still love film and for my black and white work, my nature photography, and the more "artsy" stuff I do I'm sticking with real film, but for my sports stuff I'm a total digital girl now. I'm shooting a horse show the end of this month and I'm excited to see what kinda shots I get. I'm going to do some black and white "atmosphere" shots at the event, but for the action stuff I plan to shoot all digital. It should be a lot of fun... So as far as the Seattle trip went, I had a fucking blast. The weather was beautiful. (It was cold, but it didn't rain.) I hung out with my friend Liz who I met at last year's event and with her friends Tricia and Brian who had flown up from Florida for the games. I shot like 600 pictures, 200 of which I took during the celebrity game. I met Jason Priestly (who was very nice) and got to hang out with the brothers Rosenbaum. Michael was not his usual, jovial self. He was not feeling well and was kinda grumpy as a result. Still, he was great with all the kids from the Ronald McDonald house and I got to at least talk to him for a little while. I ended up spending most of my time after the game with his little brother Eric though. I had met Eric at last year's game but didn't really know him all that well. I must say he is now one of my favorite people. He is really sweet, he's funny, and he's a hell of a hockey player. He's also living in LA now which rocks! I need a hockey buddy in this town and now I potentailly have one. He loves minor league hockey like I do so I'm going to try and get him out to an Ice Dogs game before the season wraps up. Aside from his brother, he doesn't really know anybody out here so he's kinda in the same boat I am in that respect. We totally "bonded" over the whole spontaneously-moving-to-LA-for-no-real-reason-thing. He's a really cool guy and hopefully I'll get a chance to hang out with him some now that he's living here... So yeah, I would call the trip a success. It's going to take me days and days to go through all these shots and get the good ones sent back to the powers that be at the Ronald McDonald House up there, but the hard work will be soooo worth it. I got my name in the program for the event, I realized how much I miss shooting hockey, and I met some really amazing people. I call that time well spent :)

"Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most of what you have. It is later than you think." -- Horace