Panning

Today was one of the unbelievably frequent "teacher-free days" for Julia's class, which meant that it was also a pupil-free day for her class, which meant in turn that I got to take a day off and make sure Julia didn't burn the house down. It also meant we were both free to go see something called Pipo Hour, a Fame-like afternoon of the performing arts put on by kids whose teachers did decided to turn up at school but frankly couldn't be bothered to actually do any teaching. 

Obviously, Esther's play - written and performed by Esther and two friends - was the dramatic highlight of the hour (which actually was two hours and felt a lot like three). I would try to describe it, but I don't think I could do it justice - their mission was to dramatize a Dutch saying that translates loosely as "Getting up with the chickens" and I think means getting out of bed, or going to bed- I'm not sure which - early.

I used the occasion to try my hand at a photographic technique called panning where you freeze a moving subject but render the rest of the image a blur by moving your camera with the subject. 

How hard can that be? Well quite hard. The above mess is the closest I got all afternoon. In my defense, the light was very poor in Esther's gymnasium.

I may on occasions in the past have suggested that photographers are a bunch of overpaid gadget junkies whose idea of a hard day's work and creativity is sitting in the sun at the Sydney Cricket Ground pushing their right index finger up and down a few times, but it turns out some of the stuff they do is quite hard.