Embracing the Fence

      Over the last 12 years or so I have spent a lot of time sitting at baseball games from Tball to High School. Being the sentimental mom that I am this means I have taken lots and lots of pictures at baseball games. Over the years the majority of his games have taken place at our city's very nice sports complex, whose chief limitation is the high chain link fences around the field. No matter how high in the bleachers one sits one is shooting thru the fence.This has resulted in a lot of pictures over the years that are more chain link than kid.

I especially like the way his body moves with the fence here

This summer I aquired a camera that allowed a reasonable amount of zooming and focusing on distant objects instead of what was right in front of me, thus allowing me to start a new photo project that I think of as embracing the fence, namely allowing the chain link to be part of the picture instead of an impediment.I began to play with the fence as a frame, and a way to highlight action.

And I got the framing just right here

2 for the price of one

aOn the whole I have been pleased with the results. And while I dont want to be all profound about it I have learned from this exercise. Too often we see things as getting in our way and our first response is to airbrush it out, or evern throw the whole thing away because one is thing is wrong. But often we mess the lesson we can learn from these impediments. And sometimes we are meant to focus on what is within the restricted area.The biggest thing  I discovered this year is that you can take an impediment and make it a framing device.