Tony Seeley Photography

So I know I take a lot of landscapes, in fact I post more landscapes than anything else, and I’ve stated in the past that I like to shoot vista’s more than portraits as you don’t have to talk to a sunset or interesting view.  I think (not sure) I’ve also stated that Abi is very into gymnastics, in fact she’s in a “Rec-Opt” (which I’m told stands for Recreational Optionals) program at her local gym.  She’s been learning all her routines for the last 6 months in preparation for the competition meets she’s now attending.  As a girl gymnast she obviously does her obligatory four events Beam, Uneven Bars, Vault and Floor.

Well today was her second meet.  This one was at her own gym too so we didn’t have to travel too far to see her in action.  This is a tough sport though, not only for the participants but also for the spectators.  Abi works out 3 times a week putting in many hours in the gym to get better, and today I had to sit through 6 hours of gymnastics to see my daughter for less than 3 minutes.  It was brutal!  But I have to say worth it as my little girl was amazing.

This is now dad bragging time so you are going to have to just put up with this (nope I’m not apologizing).  111 kids turned up today in her event, and 18 were in her age category and skill level.  Abi got 8.9 on the beam and came 6th, she got 9.25 on the floor and came 2nd, she got 8.8 in the vault and came 5th and 8.8 on the bars and came 3rd.  Overall she came 4th, and her team came 3rd.

She works really hard at this and I have to say I was very proud of her.  I like watching all the events but my favorites are the beam and floor.  They last the longest and to me look the hardest to do.  The trouble with taking pictures at these events is that the lighting is terrible and there are always people in the way.  Also the kids move very fast so that with low light means that getting focus and no motion blur is really hard.

For tonight’s picture I decided to post this one of her about to start her floor routine.  You can see the concentration in her face and she did REALLY well.  When I see her tumbling across the floor doing her cartwheels and round off back hand spring I’m just amazed and again very proud.

Tonight the guys found some “Glassy Baby” candle holders to play with.  Apparently these are very popular – I’ve never heard of them.

In a couple of weeks on October 13th, Scott Kelby set the date for his 5th annual World Wide Photo Walk.  Now some of you may be wondering what a photo walk is and what this has to do with today’s posting! Well read on, all will be reviled.

Firstly let me explain what a  photo walk is.  The premise is pretty simple, a number of people get together with cameras and follow a set walk and take photographs.  The walk ends at a restaurant or cafe and people share their pictures and discuss the walk.  It’s basically a social event and anyone can join – it’s also free.  You don’t have to be a professional or even have an expensive camera, you just join others for a couple of hours and capture some shots.  Scott ran one in his home town of Tampa in Florida and the had so much fun he set up a date for people to do it all over the world.  Right now there are 24,000 people taking part in 1200 cities around the world.

Anyway I really wanted to go on a walk and went online to find a local one.  There were two in Seattle but I really wanted to do something in my own city of Redmond but there weren’t any set up.  So I applied to be a leader and my application was accepted on Friday.  Now I had an idea of what walk I wanted to do, something with a bit of downtown shops and a little bit of park and even found a place to finish the walk, but still had some organizing to do.

I went to the restaurant I wanted to end up at and spoke to the manager there – now he’s really excited that we will turn up on a Saturday afternoon with hopefully a load of people.  I spoke to the Police and the security company who work in Redmond Town Center and got everything sorted there, and yesterday I walked the photo walk route and captured some shots.  I wanted to make sure the walk was long enough and there was enough interesting things to shoot.

My Walk is just over a mile long and if you’re taking pictures along the way will take around 2 hours to complete, and we end up at Redmond’s Bar and Grill at noon for lunch.  So I’m totally set.  So I published the walk online and people have started to sign up.  I’m allowed a total of 50 people, right now I have 4!  But I’m guessing it’s early days.

Yesterday Abi joined me on the walk helping me look for different things to shoot.  We found loads of subjects and I took tuns of images.  At one location we found this bright orange wall and she posed against if for a shot, and this is the image I’m posting for today.  We had a lot of fun and I’m really looking forward to the real walk.  I’ll post what happens here on the 14th.

If you want learn more or join us on the walk here is the link to the site: Redmond Photo Walk.

Carter and Master Chief’s Girl Scout Badges finally arrived for all the cookies they sold (and ate), they couldn’t agree however who should have which badge!