The NFL Experience
October 17, 2008 | Filed Under football | 2 Comments
I can finally say, “Yes, I’ve shot an NFL game.”
I’ve shot many high school games, a college game, but they don’t compare to the NFL Experience. To those who shoot the NFL regularly, it’s probably old hat for you, but for me it was like getting to fly first class after riding in coach all my life.
The first thing that really surprised me was how big these guys are. Not sure where these guys hang out all week, but I’ve never seen people this enormous at the grocery store or mall.
Photographing the game is pretty much the same — except the players move so much faster, and passes get to their intended receivers (or defensive players) in a blink of an eye.
Night Football with Flash
July 20, 2008 | Filed Under football, off-camera flash, photography tips | 2 Comments
Bel Air running back scores a touchdown against Edgewood.
If you are a sports photographer and frequently shoot high school night games of football, soccer, or lacrosse, you have probably experienced poor lighting. Some of the newer fields have decent lighting, but a majority of the ones I visit are marginal at best.
Don’t Shoot Till You See the Whites of Their Eyes: Tips to Taking Better Sports Pictures
June 27, 2008 | Filed Under SPORTS, photography tips | 3 Comments
Go to any 
high school or recreational league where sports are being played, and you’ll find parents, grandparents, and friends with cameras.
From my observations, I see many folks whip out their pocket camera or digital SLR and just snap away when “Little Johnny” hits the field, most likely capturing many pictures of his back, or becoming unrecognizable because he is so far away and just shows up as a blip on the picture.
With some planning and keeping in mind some of my tips below, you can transform yourself from a sideline snapshooter into a quality sportsshooter, and create photographs worth looking at over and over again. Creating better images will not only make you proud of yourself, you will have cherished images to complement your memories.
Wrestling Team Poster: Part 1 - Chroma Key Cutouts
June 16, 2008 | Filed Under photoshop tips, wrestling | 9 Comments
I am working on a project for Keith Watson, aka “Watty”, head coach of the John Carroll Wrestling team (a private high school in Bel Air). Watty, who is sometimes referred to the P.T. Barnum of Harford County wrestling – he is always thinking of ways to market and promote his school and the sport — contacted me a couple months ago with an idea of wanting to create a poster that displays their 2008-2009 wrestling schedule along with a picture of the team on it. His first thought was to assemble the team on someone’s front porch and have some slogan referring to porch, big dogs, etc.
Pick Your Poison
February 27, 2008 | Filed Under basketball | Leave a Comment
Monday night was the championship game of the UCBAC (Upper Chesapeake Bay Athletic Conference) Boy’s Basketball. It was being held at Harford Community College.
I was there on assignment for The Examiner. I had never been to the HCC gym, so did not know if there would be any place to mount my strobes, so I decided to leave them home, and shoot ambient. With that in mind I loaded my camera bag with my 85 f/1.8 and 135 f/2.0 lenses.
Surprisingly the lighting in the gym wasn’t too bad (as far as gymnasiums go). My camera settings were ISO 1000; f/2.0; 1/500.
The Examiner wanted images of Aberdeen’s two superstars — Devon Saddler and Devon Branch. Devon Saddler’s father saw me waiting for the Girl’s championship game to finish and was telling me how the two Devon’s are slam dunking machines. He then showed me his T-Shirt that had images of both players with “Pick Your Poison” written across the top. I knew I was in for an exciting game.
Normally I like to use my 135 lens, but with the information of them loving to go strong to the basket, I switched to my 85 and setup camp for the game sitting at the corner of the baseline and sideline.
It didn’t take long and the fireworks started. I think Devon Saddler had four in the first half. I was in perfect position to capture the slam dunks and with a clean background to boot!
These two images above are a good example of why people have fits with white balance in a gymnasium. Just look at the wall in the background. Same camera settings, but they produced two different colors. Gym lights are generally fluorescent and actually cycle at 60Hz, so the light output is not constant. The human eye doesn’t notice this pulsating wave of output, but the camera sure does. The best way I have found to get the majority of your shots correct from the get-go is to shoot a gray card at 1/60 second, which allows the lights to complete a full cycle, thus giving you the average light color to use for your custom white balance.
Aberdeen went on to win 66-49 over Elkton which was Aberdeen’s fifth UCBAC championship, which just happens to be the total number of years the UCBAC has been in existence.
Mount Mat Madness V
January 22, 2008 | Filed Under off-camera flash, wrestling | Leave a Comment
Saturday I spent the entire day at the 5th annual Mount Mat Madness tournament. This is one of the toughest high school wrestling tournaments on the east coast. For anyone who loves the sport of wrestling, this is a must-see event.
I was on-hand to shoot some key semi-finals matches as well as all of the championship finals matches.
The lighting inside of the athletic center at CCBC is nothing spectacular, so I brought my trusty speedlight setup with me.
A very nice balcony along one side of the building provided a great location for me to mount my two speedlights. Using superclamps, I could easily mount them to the railing on the balcony.
I set my two Canon 580EXs at 1/4 +0.3 power; 105mm zoom and pointed the lights slightly inward towards the center of the mat and aiming at the far end of the mat. You can see a view from the balcony as they were setting up the mat for the finals. Once the lights were in place, it was time to head down matside to get my camera settings worked out.
I snapped a few shots of people walking across the mat and by checking my histogram on the camera, determined ISO 400; f/5.0; 1/250s was pretty close. I set my WB to daylight and was ready to go.
The finals did not disappoint — there was some fantastic wrestling and I was able to watch it on my belly at the edge of the mat. I’m already looking forward to MMM-VI!
Follow the bouncing ball
December 23, 2007 | Filed Under basketball, off-camera flash | Leave a Comment
I had an assignment to shoot the Hampton at UMBC basketball game at the RAC Arena yesterday. I’ve been to this arena in the past and know it is as dimly lit as the average high school gym — boo. Usually college events have better lighting, but this is not the case at UMBC.
I brought two flashes with me to mount to the railings on the upper level to add a bit more light to the scene. Here is a shot from the other end of the court to show my setup.
I set the flashes to 1/4 power and 70mm zoom. I aimed each towards the center of the court. With this setup, I was able to shoot at ISO 200; f/2.8; 1/250.
UMBC came away with the win 83-65.
Being in Two Places at the Same Time
October 15, 2007 | Filed Under equestrian | Leave a Comment
Yesterday I was out on an absolutely beautiful day taking photos of the Hunter Trials put on by the Elkridge-Harford Hunt Club.
If you’ve ever been to an event like this, you would know that horse jumps are spread out over a large area. Typically as a photographer, you can usually find a location to capture two, maybe three jumps at a reasonable distance to produce decent images.
For the first time at an event, I experimented with using a remote camera. It was like being in two places at the same time!
For this shot, I setup my camera about 8 feet away from the side of the jump with my 14mm lens. I used a special cable that connects the camera to one of my Pocket Wizard radio receivers.
I was about 1500 feet away shooting at a different jump, but could see this jump and manually triggered my transmitter as horses made their jumps at this fence. Being 1500 feet away and not having a good angle (horse running away from me) does bring in more challenges — such as knowing exactly when the horse is about to jump. I found myself hitting the trigger button a bit early or late, so I did not always get the “perfect” shot. Now knowing this, I will make sure to setup future remote cameras in locations that I will be able to nail the jump at a higher percentage.
I’m looking forward to my next equestrian event to try this out again.