Playing Hard

Photo of the Day

This is the last of my ‘best of’ shots from last year that I have not posted on this site yet. Most of them were part of the photo 365 project that I was a part of. That project was a blessing and a curse. It did force me to shoot every day and open my eyes. It also forced me to post many pictures that I was not completely proud of on this site. I HAD to take a shot everyday so many were forced. I learned a lot though during that year, but I would recommend not posting all of your shots like I did.

I chose this shot to post today because the player that is the subject was the reason that I attended the game. He has been on the site before, but this shot had never been on here. I liked the idea of his hat coming off as he charged the ball, but the shot always looked a bit flat to me. The conditions were rapidly changing that day, and I was a bit overexposed at this time. I have since started shooting in aperture priority to avoid this problem.

Technical Data

I ran this shot through Lightroom to apply the light sports preset to it. I also adjusted the highlights and shadows which really gave it the punch that I was looking for the day that I shot it. With a shot that I was now proud of it became one of my favorites for the year.

A Baseball Card?

In the past I have taken my pictures and put them on cards. I really got into sports photography as a kid collecting baseball cards. For some reason I took a while to come around to that realization. It was on a trip home when I was looking through my cards that I realized that sometimes I loved a card of a player that I had no attachment to. The pictures on the cards really drew me in. I decided to try and put this picture on a card to see what would come of it. You can find that card on my Facebook page here. I actually used a 1984 Topps Football card for my template, but you get the idea. I might do this a bit more as it was very fun to do.