A Golden Opportunity

Sports Photo of the Day

Yesterday I was having some fun shooting two baseball games in the area. I made some pictures at a local JV game with one player in mind, and then I went over to Purdue to watch the game there. The light really makes things interesting as the sun goes down at the new stadium. The shadows stay over the batters box, but the do creep around the pitchers mound from time to time. You basically need two settings. One to shoot the sunny portion of the field, and one to shoot the batters area. I have been shooting in aperture priority mode for this reason at the new stadium. Last night was the first night that darkness really began to set in at the ballpark, and we could see what the lights would do. Just before that happened though a beautiful moment happened. I was in the first base camera well getting ready to find a new spot. I noticed how the last bit of golden light from the sun was splashing across the face of Purdue first baseman Angelo Cianfrocco. The golden light nearly matched that of the scoreboard so I moved over a bit to get this picture. I had just watched Joel Sartore a National Geographic photographer talking about layering that morning so I was happy to put that into practice. Sometimes everything works in your favor. This is not an action shot by any means, but it is one that I like a lot from the night.

More of my pictures from the game can be found on Purdue’s website here.

Technical Data

I really did not do too much to this photo. I corrected the white balance, and then added a bit of vibrance in Lightroom. I spent a couple of pictures trying to get this right in the camera, and I think that I did that here. I like photos that are this easy to edit.