Shooting makes for some fantastic photography.
I grew up around guns. My father was a cop and there were always guns in the house. However, we all knew what guns could do, so we never touched them or tried to play with them. We learned to shoot at a younger age so we knew the power of what a weapon could do.
When my father got sick a few years ago, I made sure to get my pistol permit so I could own his pistols. He had a couple remaining and I didn’t want to see them go somewhere else. I keep them locked up and have only shot them a couple of times — at target ranges.
A friend, Pat, recently got his pistol permit and asked me this past weekend if I wanted to shoot. Considering I had wrecked my arm/elbow the day before trying different ways of throwing discs at a tournament (seriously), I wasn’t up for shooting.
But…
I’ve wanted to take photos of the shooting process for a while. Another photographer friend took some wild shots of his brother shooting a while back, capturing the flame coming out of the end of a shotgun. Way too cool.
This was my first attempt at it and I have some ideas on things I’d like to do for future chances at doing this. Possibly this weekend, if all goes well.
Anyway, we loaded up a few containers with water and food coloring and got some cool shots. Too, shaving cream cans make for some awesome shots. Allow me to show a few of my favorite images I took of this process:
I’ve come up with a small list of items I might try and get to take photos of while things are being shot. It’s tough for sure as you have to be on rapid fire with the camera and hope like heck that you are clicking fast enough to get the good stuff. I’m hoping there are a few rifles and we can catch something coming out of the barrel a little better, but we’ll see.
Either way, this is a good photo challenge for me.I look forward to it.
If any of you shutterbugs out there have photographed shooting before, any tips?
If interested in some of the other photos I took that day, you can see them on this Flickr set.
Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.