Alpacas in the Snow!

Posted by Ivy

I’ve been wanting to photograph alpacas in the snow since I first started my part-time job at the farm, and on Sunday, after we got 7 inches of snow here, I got my chance. I spent most of my shift shoveling the parking lot and making a pathway to the far barn, and…when I finally made it to the far barn, the herd of alpacas who live there decided that would be a great time to go explore their other pasture. And then they started frolicking around in the snow. Photo magic. I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried.

These were all shot with my 50mm.

Frolicking! Felix (the one in the middle) is such a little hambone.

Sledding in the First Snow

Posted by Ivy

If you’re a little kid (heck, even if you’re a big kid), it must be the greatest feeling in the world to have the first snow day of the year come on a weekend. Especially if it’s a snow day that really does last all day—not just some measly little flurry that barely covers the ground.

When it first started snowing, I knew I would be out feature hunting at some point, but I had no idea where the good sledding hills were. As it happened, I drove right by this one on the way to another assignment, and when that shoot was over, came back right away.

I need to get a pair of better gloves; the fingerless ones I’ve been wearing all year are fine when it’s not windy and snowing, but…I had to cut this short because my fingertips were turning purple. Oops.


I’m working at the farm tomorrow, so am hoping to have an alpacas-in-the-snow post up then!

The Brave New World of Winter Sports

Posted by Ivy

‘Tis the season for winter sports!

‘Tis also the season for a serious learning curve; I haven’t shot basketball since college, and have never shot hockey. I’m working with a 70-200mm f/4.0 (maybe Santa will bring me an f/2.8!), which makes things interesting. The best part (well, okay, ONE of the best parts) of shooting high school sports, though, is that nobody cares if you use your flash during games, so I can work around the poorly lit gym. Somewhat.

Hockey is proving to be the easier of the two to shoot, mostly because there’s a press booth at the rink, which saves me from having to shoot through the glass (ugh). It’s also easier for me to follow the game through my lens; in most sports cases, I don’t notice having just one eye, but I definitely think it would help to be able to see peripheral action during basketball games, so I could compose things faster. Oh well. Just something to learn to deal with.

On Saturday, all four of the varsity teams had home games (and all four of the teams won, which was pretty great. Go Vineyard!), so I was very busy running back and forth between the high school gym and the hockey rink.

 

 

 

The Island Cup: Getting There

Posted by Ivy

Each year, the final game of the MVRHS high school football season is a matchup between Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket–the “Islands” part of The Cape and Islands part of Massachusetts. The rivalry unofficially dates to the late forties, and officially became the Island Cup 33 years ago. The game site alternates between MVY and ACK (Nantucket has an odd airport code); this year, it was on Nantucket.

So on Saturday, I caught the fan boat–a Steamship Authority ferry boat chartered by the booster club specifically for this trip; I think there were about 400 passengers–over to Nantucket. I was pulling double-duty, reporting and photographing all three games (jr. high, JV, and varsity (although the latter is The Game), and was also working on a reporter’s notebook story about the fan boat itself.

It was a very long day (thirteen hours, if you include the time spent writing a web update after I got back on-Island).

But it was also a very awesome day, the kind of day that makes you love journalism even more than you already do because there are just so many stories all around.