Grass Roots Video

I haven’t used my flash(es) in a couple of days and thought I should get back in the habit.  But what to take a picture of?  Well, after I mowed the yard today I spent the better part of the afternoon staining and sealing a pair of Cornhole boards.  For the uninitiated Cornhole- sometimes called Soft Horseshoes – is basically a game of beanbag toss that’s played a lot like Horseshoes.  There are two boards place 20 feet apart and there’s a six in hole cut out of each board.  The goal is to throw a 1 pound bag of corn kernels from one set of boards to the other and make it through the hole.

Back to the photography…  After playing a bit of Cornhole today I thought it might be nice to capture some the the “action” during a game, but everyone else was done playing well before I got my camera out.  So after some thought and waiting for the sun to go down, I convinced my wife to throw a few bags in the backyard.  There is a setting on my flash that I haven’t found a good use for until now called “Multi.”  It causes the flash to go off multiple times during an exposure at a frequency that you can set.  I set up the camera, tested the flash setting, had Jessica toss four bags while I tweaked things, and then on the second toss of the second set of four it all came together in the picture you see above. 

I found this image to be a bit different and a good use of this specialized flash setting.  I’m not sure if this type of picture is what was intended for this setting, but it worked exceptionally well.  My next thought for this setting is to take a picture of one of our dogs running across the yard.  I just hope I can make that one happen some time this month.

Please feel free to comment back with suggestions and ideas for future photographs, or to critique what I’ve posted thus far.  There’s nothing better than good, thoughtful, constructive feedback.