ActionshotsNH - Photography Collage

I enjoy taking pictures of activities my family and I are involved with.  Several years back I decided to make a collage.  Would it be a theme, a recap, or what?  I would use one of my photos for a background and add my subject photos to show something.  I really like the individual photos but there is something about a collage which makes a good summary of an event.  They would make nice posters. 

My first collage of skydiving parachutes.  I had a couple good sky photos and some colorful parachute canopy pictures.  I tried to create some kind of flow showing the parachute canopy colors so I took the skydivers out.  I get a lot of views on my blog for this so people must like it.

Kevin and I enjoy the 2012 AMA Pro Hillclimb event in NH.  I put this up on facebook and many of the riders tagged themselves to the photo.

After an excellent year of trail camera pictures I saw a fresh boot track on a trail I cut with a fresher deer track in it so I used that as the background adding the trail cam pictures from my hunting buddies.  The trail camera pictures were from Ryan, Derek, Stephen, and Ray. 

The NH ice fishing derby on Lake Winniepesaukee has been tradition for several years.  We have had large groups and small groups.  Great time, cold, fishing, food, and some nice ice shanty's.

We have been going to the Vermonster 4x4 mud races.  I decided to make this Vermonster collage. 

Vermonster also had a hill climb event at Whaleback Mountain.  No mud ... but snow ... had fun taking pictures and put this together.

Kate likes the Ford Mustang so this collage is for her.

This Crash & Burn Collage has some of my crash pictures with a parachute cut-away picture I took.  Which is worse?  A parachute malfunction with a cut away, cracking up a motorcycle, or rolling/crashing a car/truck/monster truck/snowmobile ... All have the potential to be painful.

This is from the 2013 AMA Hillclimb.  I took several pictures of Anthony DeHart so I thought I would do one of him.

I could go back over my adventures and do quite a few of these. If we continue going to some of the same events I may make another collage for a specific truck/car/rider/etc.

Over the years Pam's grandma made afghans for all her grandchildren and great grandchildren.  I took one of my sky pictures and made this for her.  I also did a Vermonster Monster Truck collage with the BIGFOOT truck in the middle.  

Had a great time at the 2014 AMA Hillclimb during Bike Week in NH.  

While exploring on vacation I spotted a garden by the ocean with lots of bird houses.  It was oceanfront property with no house.  On the fence was this sign.  The gate had a private keep out sign so I took some pictures from the street.

For years Mike and Lauren have been gracious hosts to us during hunting season.  I made Mike a hunting collage with some of our people pics.  Great memories.  Some big bucks from the group over the years and I thought "Buckwacka" was appropriate. 

I recently went to a car show and saw some very nice cars.  When I saw a lobster boat with the name "three E's" it reminded me of my 3 daughters.

I shoot pistols at my Fish & Game club a bit.  These black and white targets are 5.25" in diameter and the black and green targets are 4" in diameter.  At a distance of 12' to 25' who says I can't hit the "Broad Side of a Barn?"

When you go to the top of my blog to "Search this Blog" you can use key words to find the event I blogged about; skydiving, AMA hillclimb, hunting adventures, Vermonster, ice fishing, Monson Village, Whaleback ...

This is a work in progress ...

Skydiving - Pepperell, MA - 2016

 

I took pictures at the annual Skydiving Boogie in Pepperell.  I had out-of-town company visiting which kept me from spending a lot of time

watching but I made the best of it.

This is a big event so there were many skydivers attending.  There were additional tents set up for parachute packing and tents with companies selling equipment.  They had two planes which meant more action for me.
 

I showed up briefly 3 different times.  The sky was clear and blue most of the time.  Some clouds passed by but didn’t slow down the jumps.

The wind effects where the skydivers exit the plane.  The times I was there the wind was minimal so the exit from the planes was close to straight up.  This is not ideal for me trying to take exit pictures from the ground. 

The wind direction was not ideal either so the skydivers were coming in over the parking lot, over my head, then going away from me to make the landing in the 

field.  I like taking pictures when the skydivers are coming toward me so I can see their faces.  This was the opposite so I made the best of it. 

I saw some nice swoops by one of the formation teams jumping. 

Taking pictures of moving objects with a zoom lens takes practice.  It is fun to 

practice with skydivers as the subject.  However, if your parachute isn’t colorful or unusual I won’t take your picture.  There were some colorful parachutes … 

I wish I could have spent more time watching and taking pictures to experiment a bit.  Experimenting with camera settings will be my challenge for next year.

Go to: "Search This Blog" at the top of my page and type in "skydiving" to see past posts.

Skydiving in Pepperell, MA - Kevin

Kevin wanted to go skydiving for his birthday so we bought him a tandem jump.  Kevin and his friend Hunter decided on a day so we were off to watch.

Pam, Megan, Matt, and I met Kevin and Hunter at the airport.  They registered and we waited a bit.  They watched a 40 minute video which gave them instructions.  Once finished they met with their respective tandem jump masters.  They put on their gear and went over some instructions with the jump master.  Then we waited for their rotation on the plane.

I have taken high altitude pictures from the ground in the past.  Here are a couple pictures I took of multiple people jumping from the plane at 13,000 feet and making a ring.  Tandem teams jump from the plane around 10,000 feet and deploy their parachutes at around 6,000 feet.  Single jumpers in training jump around 5,000 feet and immediately pull their parachute cord to practice turning, etc. as part of their training.  You can see these tandems (unfortunately not Kevin) and the videographer falling from the sky.

The trick is to try to see the tandem jump from the plane and keep the tandem in your frame when they are falling.  The drogue makes the tracking easier but it’s still hard to follow something falling with a zoom.
 

Kevin and Hunter were called so they had a gear check and headed for the plane with their jump masters.  They had a second gear check just before boarding.  Once loaded they were “up-up-and-away” …  

The plane usually makes 3 passes over the jump point at the altitudes I talked about earlier.

The goal is to land in the airport field so wind speed and wind direction dictate the planes location when the skydivers leave the plane.  Because of these factors I was looking almost directly into the sun so I couldn’t see them leave the plane.  As they fell I spotted them but wasn’t able to zoom in on them with my camera until they deployed their parachute again because of the sun.

 

It looked like fun.  Kevin had a great landing and said he would do it again.  Great … another expensive sport with a huge adrenaline rush.  I told Kevin to stick with motocross bikes and Jeep 4 wheeling that are a bit safer … 

Go to: "Search This Blog" at the top of my page and type in "skydiving" to see past skydiving posts.