Walchuk Photos

These are some photos i took a few years ago at the Birmingham Zoo. It was Big Snake Day, sometime in June. They bring out the big boys and weigh and measure them and compare that to the previous year so they know how they are doing. It’s a fun time if you’re a snake lover. These were shot with my D70 so the indoor ones are a little grainy. Wish i could do it again with my D300. I’m assuming they still have that, I’ll check next summer.

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Peggy and I made a trip to Montgomery Saturday night for the Alabama National Fair. We started by grabbing some “fair food” and looking around, but soon we parted ways. She’s into the animals and competitions, i’m naturally into photography. It was very cold compared to the last fair we went to, the state fair in Pelham. We spent around two hours roaming around and then met and headed home. What can i say, i love the pretty lights. I don’t even start shooting till dark. I was using my D300 with the 18-200 VR lens again. The VR lets me use very slow shutter speeds so the stationary things stay sharp, but the moving parts blur. I played around with a couple of new techniques this time also. On fireworks shots before i have used a long shutter speed and moved the camera around during the shot. This causes all sorts of abstract effects. The other is to use the zoom, in or out, during the shot. Either way, i’m wandering around for a couple of hours, forgetting the time, like a kid in a candy store. Thanks for looking.

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What a great weekend of Bama hockey. Two games, two big wins. The Frozen Tide lit ‘em up big time. This team has improved every year since they started. They are very deep talent-wise. We’ve been beaten in previous years by Tennessee and Arkansas, but they have had programs much longer than the Tide. I’ll be surprised if we can’t stay with both of those teams now.

From a photography standpoint, this rink is a real challenge, as most hockey rinks are. The glass is always dirty from a constant banging of helmets, sticks, and pucks. You have to search around for a “hole” to shoot through and just hope all the lights are working where you’re shooting. I used my big lens, a 70-200 f2.8 VR most of the night. I used the 50mm f1.8 some also. It’s pretty easy to get shutter speeds around 800 to freeze the action without the ISO going too high. I always use auto-ISO for sports. This shot is Mark Wysock carrying the puck along the boards. Thanks for looking, use the links to the right to see the rest of the photos. If you would like a copy of any of these shots, just email me.

This was my first hockey game to shoot this season so i’m a little rusty. Hockey is a hard thing to shoot. It’s a very fast game and action all over the place. As the game progressed i got better shots. The evening started with a tribute to a player named Steve Fillo who lost his life recently while returning home after training camp. This touching tribute was delivered by Buddy Damare with members of the Fillo family present. The team will wear Steve’s number 83 on their helmet this season. His jersey hangs in the background on the bench. Another jersey will be displayed on the Alabama campus. A memorial fund was also set up and you can make donations at the game or Bama Hockey web site. As a real show of class the LSU team also wore #83 on their helmets.

Alabama got a big win with many different scorers and a solid performance in net by Luke Wikle. Use the link to the right to view the rest of the photos. If you would like any of these photos, please contact me via email. Thanks.

The family and I went to the Alabama State Fair last night. Aside from being extremely muggy it was a pretty fun time. I think it was a larger event this time than last year. There seemed to be more rides and such. It may just be my imagination. I, of course, go for the photography. The lights at night are a real opportunity to explore something with a camera that you just don’t see every day. I was shooting with my Nikon D300 and 18-200 VR lens. The VR lets you use extremely slow shutter speeds. This lets the objects that are moving blur, and the stationary objects will remain sharp. All the photos in this gallery were shot with shutter speeds of  1/4 sec up to 1 sec. Some of the rides had a nice side effect that i didn’t even realize until i started shooting. The moving part of the ride and people on them would blur as normal, but some rides had flashing lights that acted exactly like a camera flash. The end result looks almost like a double exposure. Use the link to the right to see the rest of the gallery. Thanks for looking.

On a recent visit to my mom’s house, her “wild” turkey friends showed up and put on a show. Several years ago these turkeys were part of a family of turkeys that came one spring and stayed the summer. It started as a hen and about 5 little turklets. (not sure what the young ones are called). They spent the entire summer around the house, my mom feeding them bird seed and corn every day. Soon they came to know mom very well and only moved away momentarily when she came out to feed them. They grew over the summer and by the fall you could barely tell the hen from the young ones. They went away to the big woods for the winter, then three of them showed up twice the next year for a few weeks at a time. This summer the three came back again and, as you can tell, they are all gobblers. They still know who feeds them though. They will let you get very close when your giving them the seed. This allowed me to get close and take a few shots. I think i shot around 120 frames to get these few keepers. Those heads are constantly bobbing and weaving and it’s very difficult to get them framed right. I’ll probably have another opportunity to “shoot” them before they leave again. Thanks for looking. Use the links to the right to see the rest of the photos.

I recently attended the King of the Hill rock crawling event near Florette Alabama, not too far south of Huntsville. As August days go it was beautiful. I’m not even sure it hit 80. The skys were clear and the crowd was into it. It had rained the day before so the track was slick at first but dried out later in the day. Many thanks to Jake White and the Rocket City Rock Crawlers for letting me shoot inside the danger zone. There is more danger in getting squished between a crawler and a tree, but if you stay on the right side of the tree, you’ll do fine, and the shooting is definitely better.  I saw that some of the spotters came closer than i did to getting squeezed. I even shot a few videos with my little Nikon pocket camera. The racing was close, only a few seconds separating the top spots. There were a couple of rollovers and even a young lady that showed some of the big boys how it’s done. The crowd was pumped and showed their appreciation for a great day of racing.

Use the links to the right to see the rest of the photos.

If you have any questions or if you would like to have a copy of any of the photos, please contact me via email. Enjoy!