Being Beata

A quick hike at Vickery Creek.  It was right after a large amount of rainfall, so the water was crazy!

Some of my co-workers played softball this past summer.  Me?  I’m severely un-coordinated, so I opted-out.  However, I did go once to watch and work on my action shot skills.  Unfortunately, I discovered that I had very little such skill, but a few shots did come out kind of nice.

I took these a long time ago now – May 3, to be exact.  A friend and I went to the Botanical Gardens with the specific goal of snapping some pictures.  We both bought a Nikon D40 within the last year, and neither of us had used it a lot.  It was a very successful trip for me.  I would say that these are my first “successful” batch of pictures.  One of these days, I’ll print these out and frame them up, but for now, they can prettify my blog

For your botanical enjoyment:

I went to Panama City Beach in March to visit a friend.  I didn’t go around taking a bunch of pictures or anything, but I did get a few nice ones.  That place is absolutely gorgeous!  Maybe I’ll get some property down there one of these days.  And the oysters are amazing!  I’m getting hungry just thinking about it!

Birds

Dogs

Flowers

I went last weekend around Piedmont Park to take some photographs.  I was really fascinated by all the people there – everyone was there for a different reason, doing something different.  Everyone has a story.  I tried to capture the different stories with a few photographs.  Enjoy!

Exercise



Doggie-love



Couples






Families





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On March 4, Laura and I went to Stars on Ice at Phillips Arena.  I’ve always wanted to see the show ever since I got into figure skating as a teenager, but never really had the chance (except on TV, of course).  The show is just as amazing as I thought it would be.  It allowed cameras to be brought in, so I took advantage of it and snapped some pictures.

Opening number.  They all started standing on podiums reminisce of a medal presentation.  That really did the punch of making you realize how big time these people are.

Yuka Sato – she’s so graceful in person!

Todd Eldredge.  He’s amazing.  He’s been one of my favorites since day 1.  His body lines are always so graceful.  I had no idea that he was going to be there, so when he came out, I was super pleasantly surprised.  Not only that, he skated to “I’m Gonna Find Another You” by John Mayer.  My favorite male skater + my favorite male singer made my heart melt.

Xue Sheng & Hongbo Zhao.  I’ve never been particularly fond of them in their competitive days.  I see figure skating as a very western sport – the culture, the music, etc.  They just always seemed awkward to me.  The Chinese have never been known of their grace anyway.  This was definitely them trying to be very western, and I’m not sure what I think.  They’re too Chinese – it doesn’t fit them.  But it was fun, and very well done.

John Zimmerman, Michael Weiss, and Yuka Sato.  OMG – John Zimmerman is the biggest heartthrob ever! (Do I sound like I’m 14 still?)  But it’s true .  The program is about 2 guys fighting for 1 girl, or at least how 1 girl keeps going between 2 guys.  It was really cute.

Ilia Kulik – he is also one of my favorites.  More showy than Todd Eldredge, but not as graceful.  I also am totally enamored of him and Katia Gordeeva’s romance.  OK – it’s less romance and more like they’re just married now, but still.  I think theyr’e cute.  Of course, I got started on that because I was all obsessed with Katia Gordeeva & Sergei Grinkov’s love story.  I digress…

He’s still as creative as always.  I think he does his own choreography, and it’s always been very interesting and unique.  Can’t really put my finger on it, but he’s as good as I remember him being in 1998. (Man – that’s a long time ago!)

Sasha Cohen’s 2nd number to “Please Don’t Stop the Music” by Rhianna.  I didn’t get any decent pictures of her first number since I was still trying to figure out a good setting for my camera, and she was in a very beautiful and flowy costume that moved (i.e. blurred) too much.  I don’t think fast numbers are the best for her – at least I prefer her in the slower numbers.  But really, look at that sit spin.  Can it get better than that?

Closing number for Act 1.  It was very Newsies-esque, and I loved it.  Especially when they formed the pivoting line (don’t remember what the actual term is), and had Michael Weiss do his signature spread eagle on the end.  Just super!

Yeah – 18 million pictures of the male cast number.  It also was probably the best number in the whole show.  John Zimmerman and Michael Weiss are officially the 2 awesomest male skaters.  First the layback, then John Zimmerman spins Michael Weiss overhead without hands… Wow.  I have no words.

I have to say, Michael Weiss is sure secure in his manhood to lay on John Zimmerman’s head like that…

Edited: Jennifer Robinson’s layback spin.  I had originally identified this as Sasha Cohen because I’ve always adored her layback spin.  Jennifer’s is quite amazing as well.

Marie-France Dubreuil & Patrice Lauzon skated to “Desire” by U2.  Even though they’re ice skaters, they were amazing crowd pleasers.  I especially love her skirt.  Hot stuff.

More pictures of John Zimmerman… those are mostly for someone else who think he’s cute   I have to agree with her.

Michael Weiss.  Another shot of his signature spread eagle.  Loves it!

Todd Eldredge’s 2nd number.  He manages to make even Meatloaf look graceful and elegant.

Sasha Cohen, Moonlight Sonata.  Beautiful.  Her spiral and spread eagles are perfect.  Just look at those lines!

Ilia Kulik.

Closing Number.  The show was simply amazing.

Through taking all these pictures, one thing I noticed is that some skaters photograph better than others.  Those are also the ones that I tend to like best – Sasha Cohen, Todd Eldredge, and to a lesser degree Ilia Kulik.  Their body lines are always perfect and never awkward, so every picture turns out well, even if I happen to catch them in a less appealing angle, they still don’t look awkward.  Others, however, always seem to look awkward when frozen in a frame.  Even if they can appear graceful when moving, their body positions are not ever quite there, and looks awful frozen in a picture.

Now I wonder how Michelle Kwan photographs.  She has been and probably will always be my favorite skater for a variety of reasons – the quality of her skating being just one of many.  She always has such graceful presentation, at least on TV.  I sure hope that I get to see her live one of these days.