Rameses in Chapel Hill

Rameses is the mascot of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Whenever there is a ball game, Rameses will show up and entertain fans in the court. On 6th January 2010, there was no exception in the women basketball game. Rameses walked around and greeted people. Although we did not have a chance to shake hand with Rameses, we were able to take some nice mascot photos. Here is one of them.

The trouble in taking these kind of pictures is that we have to be fast shooting. Rameses moved very fast and nice angle was not easy to come by. So, it was hard to catch the right angle with proper lighting. Fortunately, unlike normal portrait photography, Rameses has the same face expression all the time. After all, Rameses is not considered human.

Orchid in Chapel Hill

It is really not surprising to have a lot of orchid lovers around. However, it will be rare to find orchid lovers who have green thumbs. We are so fortunate to have Robin and Josh around who know so much about Orchids and grow them beautifully. The orchid in the picture is from them and it has been our pleasure to enjoy watching it in our house. Our good friend, Anne, told us that it is Cymbidium or Boat Orchid to be exact.

From our past experience, we have found that it is really hard to take good photos for orchids. But, we will not give up. On 7th February 2010, we used a table lamp with a 60W light bulb pointing to the flower. Then, one of us held a black cloth to make up the background. With a tripod and a micro lens, we were able to shot this one.

With this photo, we will always enjoy the look of it even though the live one may fade out and leave us forever.

Firework in Magic Kingdom

We have read a lot of articles on how to take firework pictures and it is not easy. It is always recommended to use tripod and we will have to do long exposure. On 26th December 2009, we spent the day in Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida. We really meant the day, a whole day. At 10pm, Disney displayed half an hour spectacular firework to celebrate the holiday. Since we spent the whole day there, carrying a heavy tripod for some evening firework shots was not very practical. On the other hand, looking at such a wonderful firework without taking a few photos would be heart-breaking. What did we do?

Luckily, our Nikon D90 camera is able set to iso 3200, extremely high sensitivity. Then, we would not have to do long exposure, no need to use tripod. This is one of the firework shots we took, a little grainy due to the high iso setting, but it is acceptable. At least, this snapshot captures a piece of beautiful firework display which is quite memorable.