…And The Pitch

Sports Photo of the Day

Yesterday the Major League Baseball season started up. This is a great time of year. After a long winter (that is not quite over here) baseball starts up, and you can trick yourself into thinking that it is getting warmer. Starting today I have a lot of baseball ahead of me to shoot. By far pro baseball is my favorite sport to watch. I watch very little pro basketball and football. That being said I will watch anything at the amateur level. When I was a kid I was always drawn to certain cards. I never knew what drew me to them until I was an adult. I still had some of the binders, and looking through them now I can see why I would collect the off card. The photography on the card drew me in. I wish that I had grasped my love of photography sooner. I spent a lot of time in college trying to find my place. The opportunities afforded a college student photographer are amazing. That being said I found my calling a little later than most. I have spent the better part of the last year and a half trying to get better. I think that I have made great strides since even last spring shooting sports. The above shot was taken during a high school game. My gear has changed and so has my eye for the shot. I think that I have seven baseball games in the next six days that I can photograph. If my goal is to practice I should get a lot of that in over the next week. I may fill my hard drive up in that time as well. I think that the next few mornings will be full of baseball shots. I will try and post a landscape shot at night as well to keep everyone who has subscribed happy.

Technical Data

I really did not do much to this photo. I opened it up in Lightroom, and applied the light sports preset that I downloaded for free from Matt Kloskowski. This is a great preset that I use way too much. For sports photos though it gets you where you want to be very quickly. There are things that I always change in it though so I really need to make my own preset so that I am even closer off the bat. I also cropped this image quite a bit. When I took the picture I had the camera horizontal leaving way too much dead space in the frame. I had the capability to get this close, but for some reason I decided not to. After that I exported this photo so that I could insert it into this post.

First Quarter Wrap Up

This first quarter of the year has really exceeded my expectations. I have seen an unprecedented spike in the visitors and subscribers to this little blog. I do not say this to brag, but rather to thank you all for stopping by. It really is humbling that people care enough about what I do to check up on my everyday. Last month was by far the best month that I have ever had on this blog. It really seems as if things are starting to click for me, and I hope that I can continue to give you pictures that are worth your time. Thank you again for stopping by.