Capturing the Action!

Oh to have Jessica's ankles even though they are blurred out above. Look how high she is flying. These are from a quick trip to the farm last weekend to visit the girls. We spent the majority of the time down by the lake were they enjoyed the cool water and I did my photography assignment for the week, which was playing with shutter speeds.

The top shot was my best panning shot and my teacher told me that I should enter it into the upcoming Photography Society of America's competition on movement. This is like the highest compliment she can give and since she is often a judge of their competitions I am seriously considering doing it. Panning is when you set a slow shutter speed like 1/30 of a second and move the camera with the action. The person/thing moving doesn't have to be crystal clear which is what was bothering me about some of my attempts but just needs to be relatively clear, like Jess is. The background should be blurred and show the movement.The second shot is also with a slow shutter speed which shows the water as one silky entity rather than the individual droplets that you see with a normal shutter speed. It helps to have a tripod for sure when using slow shutter speeds but when dealing with moving kids you have to just hold the camera as steady as you possibly can.

I had an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon the other day to check things out before we go on vacation. As I mentioned I've felt like I've regressed the past 3 weeks and have been having lots of weird pains and tenderness. My suspicions were unfortunately correct. There are actually two things going on in my ankle. For one thing I have a screw loose. I've gotten a kick out of using that line but I guess it's not a laughing matter. I can feel it moving around down there but it's not where the pain is coming from so they are going to leave it alone for the time being. If it starts causing problems or if some of its pals also start leaving the plate they will have to go in and take them out.

But the real problem is something that occasionally happens when there is trauma in the bones. My ligaments in between the two fractured bones are turning into bone which is called ossification. The x-rays from 6 weeks don't show anything but the one from this week has all kinds of white bone growth were there shouldn't be any. There isn't really anything they can do to stop it. If it gets worse they will have to do surgery to remove it. It obviously can be painful and he said to use Ibuprofen and call him if it gets more painful.

Mike said that he never should have told me that there was something actually wrong. I have a tendency to make excuses when I'm feeling lazy He said he can hear me now saying, "Can you get me a soda, my ossification is bothering me." The one good thing is that there is nothing to stop me from going and enjoying my vacation. My doctor said to just bring an ice pack and end the day with some Ibuprofen and a glass of wine. I think I can follow those doctor's orders!