Last Day at Camp

Well last day for the kids for this session. I'm still here till Tuesday. Yesterday was the last full day with the kids and I was able to grab a few last activities that the camp directors wanted. In the afternoon I got to hang out with this prodigy skateboarder kid whose been skatboarding since he was FOUR?! He was amazing!



I got to also shoot some mountain boarders. The kids here are so talented at this stuff. I swear I would KILL myself on a half pipe or on a mountain board! I'll just stick to taking pictures. :) I took both of these pictures using a technique called "dragging the shutter." You use a fairly slow slow shutter speed (for this I think both of them were in the 1/80th of a second range and then set your camera flash to fire "rear curtain" which basically if you think of how a flash works, you click the button, the shutter opens and the flash fires and then the shutter closes (all super fast). With rear curtain flash, the same thing happens but your flash fires right before the shutter closes as opposed to as soon as it opens and so you get some of that movement like that. The flash "freezes" your subject and the longer shutter speed (with me panning the camera with the movement of the subject) makes the background motion. Hope that made sense!! :)



Anyways, last night was the traditional candle light ceremony where all the kids line up in a huge circle in which there is a cross in the center. They are handed candles and one by one the candles are lit until everyone in the circle is holding a lit candle. The analogy is of the light of Christ in a dark world. Then different groups of kids go to the middle and put their candles in the center until all the candles are in the cross. It's a really cool ceremony and a lot of the older kids were really emotional, because this service happens every year on the last night of camp and for many of them they have been here five or six (or more) years and this is their last year.






Then this morning, I got up early and drove up to this high place that overlooked the lake and got some scenic shots of the lake.




Then the kids ate breakfast here and then boarded on buses after saying goodbye to their friends and counselors that they have been with the last two weeks.




Then last but not least after all the kids left the directors wanted a group staff shot. In the past we've just done traditional shots, but this year I suggested we make it a little creative. :) They ended up harnessing me into this contraption called the "King Swing" which basically pulls you up and backwards about 100 feet in the air and then the release you and you free fall for about 2 seconds and then swing out (think like a pendulum). The staff all grouped together and then I took a bunch of pictures as I swung over their heads! Looks cool huh?! :)