Today was a tough day. In fact, I’ve probably never had a harder day shooting pictures.<\/p>\n
So, the day started poorly. I was supposed to wake up early and get to the barns. I didn’t wake up in time. When I did wake up, I got really lucky and found someone who was heading over to the horse race. That was about my only luck today. There was no gorgeous light. I thought that there was going to be beacons of gorgeous light. I was wrong. Clouds all day. I thought that the color was going to be great. I was wrong. The afternoon shadows were going to litter the field. I was wrong. Here’s the thing. You can’t come into a situation with pre-conceived notions. You can’t come into the situation thinking that you are better than it. I learned my lesson. I still love horse racing, but I don’t know if I’m going to ever be able to love shooting it.<\/p>\n
I ran away from horse racing and into rugby. We got lost, and we stopped to get some dinner, and then finally made it. When I went out there, I headed over to one of the “end zones” and the coach was chilling there. He and I bonded a bit, and it made the game easier to understand and then shoot. It allowed me to forget about how bad horse racing went, and just enjoy shooting. I borrowed a friend’s 300 and it made things a bit easier as well. I’m making a bit smarter photos then when I did coming in. I’m learning slowly. Gosh it hurts, but that’s the name of the game.<\/p>\n
The review session was harsh. They were really attacking the photos that they didn’t like, but they did speak highly of the ones that were strong photos. After seeing photos, you think that submitting photos that others won’t see\/enter is crucial. In fact, if you’ve ever seen it, don’t turn it in. There’s an intense degree of mean-ness to the ordinary. I got good reviews. I’m content. I need to do better.<\/p>\n
1 day to go, and I’ve got to be big time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today was a tough day. In fact, I’ve probably never had a harder day shooting pictures. So, the day started poorly. I was supposed to wake up early and get to the barns. I didn’t wake up in time. When I did wake up, I got really lucky and found someone who was heading over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[9,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQyAq-z","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":34,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2006\/11\/04\/ssa-iii-day-two\/","url_meta":{"origin":35,"position":0},"title":"SSA III - Day Two","date":"November 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Wow, what a day. It started early, it ended late, and man did it kick my ass. I started with location portraiture. I wasn't phenomenally impressed only because we're using gear that's leagues away from where I am. I wanted to see if I have 2 550's how can I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "SSA III"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":59,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2007\/06\/09\/lessons-from-the-horse-track\/","url_meta":{"origin":35,"position":1},"title":"Lessons from the Horse Track","date":"June 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I learned, or maybe I just re-learned it for the hundredth time, that what scares people beyond anything else is never being heard. Is having to realize that you spent 20, 40, 80 years on this earth, and no one once listened. And really, the problem isn't that people don't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Summer of Zimbra"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":299,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2010\/02\/28\/building-a-community-by-selling-to-communities\/","url_meta":{"origin":35,"position":2},"title":"Building a community by selling to communities","date":"February 28, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I had a phenomenal discussion with Bartosz Solowiej, formerly of TokBox and currently of Gigs.ly, about many a thing, but specifically about the community problem that I am having. Not a problem in the sense that something is wrong, but rather a problem in bringing horses to water. It really\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1748,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2016\/11\/09\/dear-ms-mary\/","url_meta":{"origin":35,"position":3},"title":"Dear Ms. Mary...","date":"November 9, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear Ms. Mary, I want to reintroduce myself. My name is Melih Onvural, and we met almost 25 years ago in a small town called Cary, NC. I even remember how you introduced yourself - \"My name is Mary. My husband's name is Terry. And we live in Cary\". I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"Raif Onvural at ODTU Graduation 1983","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/onvural.net\/photos\/var\/albums\/family\/random\/ODTU-photo4.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1467,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2015\/01\/04\/this-week-in-review-17\/","url_meta":{"origin":35,"position":4},"title":"This week in review","date":"January 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This was a week of ending our holiday, and getting back into the swing of things back home. It all started with Uncle Dan's wedding in Edinburgh. First of all, why is it pronounced borough, but spelled burgh? Someone has to figure that one out for me. The wedding was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Updates"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1793,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2017\/12\/29\/2017-a-year-in-review-the-good\/","url_meta":{"origin":35,"position":5},"title":"2017: A Year in Review - The Good","date":"December 29, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"What a year... to say the least. Dominated so much by what happened around me, that I really spent almost no time thinking about looking inward, and keeping score on myself. There was a lot of bad... but let's start with the good. Exploring a new city It's been so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}