Earlier this year I enjoyed a very relaxing few days with family in the US, in Redmond, Washington. When my nieces were much younger, I travelled to the US regularly with work so was able to see them often but these days I only tend to see them once a year, and it’s always a shock to see how they’ve grown, but equally lovely to catch up with them and what they’re doing (as well as my brother and his wife!).

Meg is a very fit young lady and laps up anything where she can burn off energy. She is very into gymnastics, so with the Seattle gym sectionals that her gym was attending coinciding with my visit I couldn’t resist taking the camera along. As a “family” photographer, I wasn’t allowed anywhere near the matt area where the gymnasts ran through their practice/displays so I was confined to the sidelines but the 70-200mm and 85mm lenses gave a good reach to close-in on the action. As I started to point them towards Meg, I did get some funny looks from the gym owner/trainer; but they got more relaxed when Meg confirmed I was Uncle Michael so I was spared having to have a chat with the local Police or anything! In fact, there were quite a few parents with cameras, and quite a few with 70-200 and hi-spec bodies too.

With so much movement in my subject matter I was pretty much forced to shoot in servo mode, but as a rather exciting experiment I decided to switch to back-button focusing… something that Stewart and Tony have been on at me for ages to try, but something to which I had never really got the hang/feel of. Well, after that experience of using it I’m a convert!

In contrast to Meg, Ali is much more laid back. Relaxed with the world and without the need to cartwheel across the floor or get the high of exercise on a high bar. Thus, she was much happier with impromptu portraits to give grandma an updated image of how she’s getting on and what she looks like now.

We ventured north of Seattle on one of the days, and found a tulip farm (actually in a town called Tulip Town, strange that!). It was an incredible sight to behold, especially with an approaching weather front. Although we were just-visiting and I was just snapping, there were some real pro’s on the scene with fancy lighting setups, reflectors, diffusers, scrims, soft boxes and more, which are just visible in the background of the image with Meg below… but despite that clutter I just love the image, her child-like care-free splish-splashing in the puddles with the backlight sun takes me back there every time I look at it.

Filed under: Misc by browellphotography