It was sure great to see old friends and meet new ones in Cannon Falls, MN this past weekend. Since moving, from Iowa in 1999, I kind of left behind an old way of life. The weekends spent at horse shows with family and friends ended and I never picked it back up. I even put down the camera, for a few years, with the exception of photographs at family get togethers.

    You know, up until about 3-4 years ago I was still using a film SLR camera. I found that my desire for photography was coming back and I was starting to take more photographs again. However, I was not impressed with the quality of the developing as it was not up to par with what I had been used to especially for the cost of film and processing. So, I purchased a Canon Sure Shot and I was absolutely hooked to digital right out of the box. I'm one of those "instant gratification" types so I was an easy catch for Canon. :-) I used the little handy Sure Shot for a little over a year and the photo bug had fully reared it's head again so off to the camera store to buy my first DSLR. I wasted no time and went right for the Canon EOS 5D Mark ll. The new love of my life. A couple of months ago, I upgraded to the new 5D Mark lll....the current new love of my life. :-)

   Learning to use that new DSLR has been a challenge. It took some adjusting of my old ways of photographing. And trying to learn all those buttons and functions! I don't read owner's manuals, so you can imagine the time I was having learning how to use the new camera. But I was persistant and I'm so glad I was because I am back and ready to learn (ALWAYS learning), to shoot and to share my love for photography.

    My kids are grown and off to college and my hubby and I are ready for a new phase in our lives. Photography. I have come full circle with this passion and despite how much I love taking my flower close-ups, scenics etc, I come back to the horses...always the horses. There are just some things that are forever ingrained in our being and no matter how hard we try to change it up...we come back to what we truly love. 

  It was a spur of the moment thing that we ended up in Cannon Falls and I'm so glad we did! I needed a new challenge and decided I needed a horse show event. No better challenge than a speed event inside a dimly lit arena! So off we went. I spent a lot of time trying the shots with no flash and different lenses and settled on a flash and the 100-400mm lens. I think the 70-200 would work better but I let the hubby use that on his 5D ll so he could take advantage of the faster lens in the low light situation with no flash. Now that I've gotten through the photographs, I see where I need to imoprove and I'm ready for another chance to make some needed changes to see if I can get those improvements I desire. I strive to get the shots right in the camera so that my post processing is limited.

Happy Trails ~ Gina