Pence Family: Natalie at Winners on Wheels!

Thursday was Winners on Wheels at the preschool, and Natalie got to bring her bike to school for some riding! Natalie’s time to ride was unfortunately smack in the middle of the morning, but I was feeling pretty good and wanted to go up for it. I stopped by my mom’s house to borrow a lens from David on the way. I needed something with a little more zoom in it so I wouldn’t have to run around after her to take pictures. I wasn’t up for that. :)

My sweet girl finding her bike.

They put their helmets on and walked the bikes through the building out to the parking lot.

Ready to go!

I know Natalie kind of wishes she had a pretty pink helmet, but this one will get to be passed down, so that makes me very happy. And the fish are cute.

And they’re off!

There were cones set up for the kids to ride around and around and around.

Natalie spent most of the time with her head turned, looking at everybody else’s business. I kept hollering at her to look where she was going!

She only wiped out once though – that’s pretty good! Thankfully other people were happy to run over and make sure she was okay so I could stand where I was and take pictures. :)

This is my favorite shot I got and the only one I edited:

{The next paragraph is where I disect the photography of this picture, so if that doesn’t interest you, you can skip to the next picture. :)} It basically looked like this straight out of the camera, I just cropped it a bit, sharpened it a tiny bit, and boosted the colors. I was trying to get some pictures like this (with Natalie in focus and everything else a blur) but it was easier said than done. I was very excited to get this one! Basically what I did was slow down my shutter speed a lot so that it would take the picture very slowly. Then, since it didn’t occur to me to ~~steal~~ ~~borrow~~ bring a tripod, I held the camera as still as I could and attempted to follow Natalie as she moved while the shutter snapped. That way, Natalie stayed (basically) in focus while everything around her was blurred. I think it’s cool! Here are my settings for the above pic:
lens: 28-135mm
shutter priority mode (meaning I chose the ISO and shutter speed then let the camera choose the aperture)
f-stop: f/29
exposure time: 1/8 sec
ISO speed: 200
focal length: 53mm

Here she is looking where she’s going!

Natalie is a very laid back bike rider. She has become interested in trying to ride without the training wheels, but I don’t think she realizes it won’t be so much like a carriage ride through the country that way.