Park Stalker

Perhaps the title of the post is a little harsh and of course I'm not labeling myself a stalker of any sort... none-the-less, I sure did feel like that creepy lady at the park. In my quest to improve my photography skills, I find myself in need of practice.. After all, practice makes perfect. Problem comes in when I want to work on my panning skills but don't have a subject that pans quite yet.. Riley's still just chillin where I put him and even when he does start to crawl, it won't be fast enough to make quite the impact I want in pictures. I supposed I could use John, but it would be a challenge to get him to cooperate (ie: swinging, running constant speed for spurts, etc.). Truly, it's just easier snapping strangers and kids are so perfect with their energy! This practice is for the toddler times... but why not get the "trail and error" out now so that when Riley is "toddling" around, I'm poised and ready. So there I sat, lurking on the sidewalk, camera in hand... I may as well have been in the shadows for as creepy as I felt. I tried to extinguish the thoughts by asking permission or chatting with the moms- whatever- it made me feel better. Despite the mildly weird feeling it gave me, I enjoyed my time at the park... Even if I was just taking pictures of other people's kids. Although there is lots of room for improvement, here are the best of my panning shots (enlarging the pictures helps to see the details):



For those interested... I tried the shots using my Tv mode (time value= shutter priority) and I opened up the shutter between the range of 1/15 to 1/30. Anyway- just playing around and figured I'd post on my experience.