The Week That Was In Sports

This was another fun week of sports photography. Every day but Sunday had at least one event, and Monday had three. I got to get some reps in for sports that I don’t photograph often. I also was able to photograph senior day for a fun group of Harrison seniors. Basketball is starting to creep back into the mix as well. It was a fun week with a little bit of variety. The sports never stop. When this post goes live I will be at my little ones softball practice. It is another pretty busy week which is always a good thing. I really think that I am doing well right now. Keeping fairly busy has helped me get better every week. When I worked in the can plant we talked about Kaizen and continuously improving. I have tried to keep that mentality with my photography. Get better every outing.

High School Golf

I didn’t realize until I started writing this post, but I had never covered high school golf until Monday. I have photographed a lot of college, and a little PGA but never high school. Golf is golf, but it is always fun to get out and the course and get a little creative. You are constantly looking for ways to make something different. I could have covered every athlete by standing in one spot and making the same photo over and over. Part of the fun of golf though is to walk the course and look for interesting  situations.

A Little Lost

To be honest I was a little lost early on during the action on Monday. I was not there for any person or any team. I have never covered golf without an assignment. It took me a couple of holes to fully embrace the chaos that I could photograph anyone. Just find a cool photo opportunity and make the photo. Once I did that I really started having fun.

Using The 300mm For Golf

Most of the time for golf I use my 200-600mm lens. I like the range that the 200-600 gives me on the course. The rain and clouds though made sure that I couldn’t really use that lens. It is hard on a dark day to work with a lens with an f-stop of f/6.3. The 300 on the other hand is a f/2.8 lens that lets much more light into the camera. By having just the one focal length I really could get creative with my images. Here with the 600 I would have found a way to get much tighter on the action. With the 300 though I was having fun using the lines of the course to bring the viewer into the photo with a lot of dead space.

Finding Good Backgrounds

Part of the fun of golf is getting a little ahead of the players to find where the good backgrounds are. You can end up with some distractions in your photos pretty easily on the course. When you find a sweet spot with a nice background it feels good. On a wide open course you could expect to have all kinds of places without distractions, but you would be surprised at the amount of yellow and white objects all over the course. On a day like this one the carts were everywhere too. Getting a photo with no distractions was really fun.

Practice!

I am not normally the kind of person that loves photographing practice. It can hard at times to make a good image because of many factors. Early in the season though it is good to have photos of the athletes for stories leading up to the season. I have been working with Mike Carmin for Purdue women’s basketball now for a couple of years. Mike is a reporter that I have always admired, and it is awesome to be able to help him out. You can find what Mike has been up to here.

Looking Forward To The Season

The beginning of the basketball season is just over a month away. That is hard to believe, but true. Lately the teams in college basketball have been way more interesting to cover early in the year because of all of the new faces. The portal really has changed things. It will be fun to get back in Mackey to make some images again.

Harrison Soccer Senior Night

This group of seniors at Harrison I have watched play for years now. I had a packed day with little downtime, but I was not going to miss this. It turned out to be a beautiful night with a good victory to send the seniors out.

Finding The Moments

I was not the main photographer on the night. The team had asked someone else to do that. With that in mind I tried not to make the same picture as them. I tried to find the moments during the senior ceremony. This was one of my favorites of those moments.

Having Fun With The Sun

I might be making too many of these photos lately, but to be honest I am going to do it until I can’t. The sun will be down as events start very shortly. In fact I only had a little bit of warm ups to play with it Monday night. Might as well have fun with the light while we still have it.

A Beautiful Sunset

Monday night could have been a rainy affair, but the rain held off. We ended up with a very nice sunset to work with. I went a little wider during the sunset to work it into my photos. I had a lot of tight action already so why not sell out a little for the sunset?

 

Great Celebrations

In the previous game that I covered for Harrison they didn’t really celebrate their goals. They have been on a roll lately and the goals must have been a little ho-hum for them. That is a good thing I guess for the team, but not the photographer. On Monday night though I had a couple of really fun goal photos late in the game. These might be my favorite two celebration photos of the year, and they came fairly close to each other.

A Rainy Midweek

The middle of this week I had two fall league softball games to cover for my little one. The first was rain shortened. We were lucky to almost get an inning in, but the rain came in to stop that. Of course I love a good rain photo so I was ready when it hit. This fall season is winding down, and with that so is her time at this level. Next year will be a little different. I have been trying at these away games to show off the venues a little as well. Tight photos are great, but I wanted to create some memories of the places where she played as well.

Volleyball In Mackey

Volleyball in Mackey has its good and bad points. It can be hard to find a good angle for a lot of the digs. The larger venue though adds some atmosphere to the entire day. Sunday Purdue is back in Mackey for another Big Ten volleyball matchup. The challenge then will be to find some different angles to photograph.

A Good Move

During the hitting warm ups I had an idea for a photo. I wish that it was this one, but it was not. I wanted to be on the other side of the court. The TV people were doing a stand up though so I couldn’t get my spot. I went to the opposite side to try the same thing, and found the TV lights were perfect for a photo. I would have had a decent photo originally, but I think the lights in the background make this one and the photo that leads this post off much better. I am glad that I had to move.

Having Fun In Warm Ups

I made this photo early in warm ups. Warm ups are for me as well as the athletes. I need to kind of get things going so that I can be ready when the match starts. This photo was close to what I wanted but a little closer. It worked out really well though. I went into warm ups trying to make something different, and this certainly was different.

Here Comes The Sun

I got to the high school game Friday night way too early to make some photos. Our time with the sun during high school football is short so I wanted to make the most of this game. The sun was down by the time the team took the field so in two weeks when I see them again I won’t have much time with it at all. Here I had an idea, but a lot of luck came into play to make a fun photo. I knew where the quarterback would set up in warm ups, but not where the ball would go. The ball in the middle of the sun is a fun accident that made for a good photo.

A Tough Game

This was a tough game to photograph. The opponents offense made defensive photos hard to make. It also shortened the game meaning far less possessions to photograph. I came away with a decent gallery, but most of those photos were made before the game.

Goodnight Moon

In second half I was really trying to get the moon that was setting into my photos. It takes a lot of luck for things to line up to make this photo. I really wanted a West Side player to be the focus of the photo, but I will take this blocking photo of a Western player with the moon over his shoulder.

Bonus Photos

Below are a few bonus photos that I liked from the week. Like I said it was a few different sports that makes for a little variety on the week. Once again I was fairly busy this week so this section is a little long. If you make it to the bottom I should have a prize for you.