Sunday Stills: Both Belated and Early

I thought it would be fun to get involved with the Sunday Stills challenges, as I'm always striving to improve my photography. Unfortunately, we've been walloped with emergency after emergency at the office, and I have had to give up my holidays and weekends to work, which leaves me little time to go out and take new pictures that are in line with the assignments. So, I'm posting photos I've taken in the past.

Last week's assignment was ARCHITECTURE. I dug up these old photos from 1996. They tell a story about the future (now past) of Northwestern Nevada. There were old abandoned farmhouses scattered throughout the area in the 1990's, and the land was being sold to developers to build subdivisions. This farmhouse is long gone and there is a mobile home park in its place. I can show you a countless number of locations in my immediate vicinity where farmland was paved over to make room for wall-to-wall houses and apartment buildings.

Of course, now after the housing slump, we have many subdivisions that are empty or only half-way constructed with a few homeless people walking past my house each day. It seems so silly to have people living in cardboard boxes in freezing temperatures with all these empty mansions available. I'm waiting for some contractor (or banker) to have a heart and put two and two together. Though I know that most contractors are hurting just as much as everyone else. I wouldn't be surprised if some of those homeless folks once built houses for a living.



This week's Sunday Stills challenge is ACTION. For the past couple of basketball seasons I have been struggling to get some clear indoor action shots. The lighting of a school gym is not the best place for still photos of young men running up and down a basketball court. However, I did manage to get a few shots recently that are clear enough to share. I admit that I just use the action icon setting on my camera, because I can never remember how to use the manual settings when the time comes to take a picture. That's my son in the gold jersey - number seven.





And what would this blog be without a few action shots of horses? This one I find particularly interesting, because it was an accident. I had my camera posed to take a picture of Bombay running past me, but he cut too close and I had to lower my camera while taking a step back. I accidentally hit the shutter release just as I was lowering the camera.