A Little News

I don’t know if it shows how young some of you guys are or how old I am, but someone left a request for a manual focus primer in the comments to an earlier post. It really hasn’t been all that long ago that there was no such thing as autofocus. Or has it? Maybe I really am that old! I know that some of my beloved children think I am older than Noah and a whole lot more conservative. But they are teenagers.

Back to manual focus. I sometimes think that the actual craft of sports photojournalism has been changed/diluted/ruined by the advent of autofocus. There was a time when a person who shot sports was truly gifted, especially with the fine art of focusing. I have been on the sidelines at big football games and shot near a Sports Illustrated shooter and wondered how the heck he was able to focus when he was blazing through a roll of film on every play. Now the AF handles all that pretty close to flawlessly. That means almost anyone can shoot sports action now, at least in theory. There are still truly gifted sports shooters and the truth is that AF does not make a great sports action photographer. Like any other feature on your camera, AF is just a tool. A skilled shooter takes a good tool and makes great photographs. An average shooter takes the same tool and makes average photographs. So, AF opened the door to more and more people being able to shoot sports but the truth is that AF didn’t really transform everyone into a sports shooting guru.

Rant over. Now back to our regularly scheduled post. Manual focus actually has some advantages over AF. The prime advantage to manual focusing a sports event is that manual focusing causes you to concentrate. The biggest difference I notice, aside from the number of sharp frames, is the difference in my concentration levels. When I manual focus an event I tend to be much more sharply focused on what is actually going on in my viewfinder. AF allows me to relax a little and that is not always a good thing. I do better work when I am sweating a little.

Another advantage manual has is it frees you from that center spot AF mark in your viewfinder allowing you the freedom to actually frame an image rather than being dependent on your subject staying in the designated focusing area. Yes, I know, there are several AF settings that purport to actually track a subject as it moves out of the center AF sensor but I have never learned to trust them when a real picture is on the line. I notice that my photos are framed better when I shoot manual. I can see equally well in the edges of the frame as I can the center so I don’t have to worry about the AF spot.

Obviously, AF has its own set of advantages which I don’t really need to go into since we all know and love them already. Suffice it to say, both Nikon and Canon cameras AF better than I can focus manually. It is no contest especially at night. I do okay in daylight events but night events are much tougher and always have been.

The question remains, how do you develop your manual focus skills? Tip number one: don’t try. The harder you try to manual focus a sporting event the worse you will do. If you need to practice, go out to a street and shoot sequences of traffic moving toward you. (Don’t stand in the street to do this or someone will be taking your photo as you are loaded into an ambulance!) A street where the traffic is moving a 35-40 mph is about right. Slower might even be better. Basically you want to disengage your brain and just react to what you are seeing in the viewfinder. It is a bit like a major league hitter who is trying to hit versus a major league hitter who just steps to the plate, sees the ball and smacks it. The more you think about it the worse you will do. In other words, “trust the force Luke.”

Tip number two: Make sure all your lenses focus in the same direction. I once carried a Tamron 180 that focused the reverse of the rest of my Nikon lenses. Drove me nuts! Sounds dumb but make sure they all work the same. It will save you mega grief.

Tip number three: Have a plan. If you think a play may be made in a particular area, prefocus in that area and then just tweak the focus as the players move there. I love to do this in baseball because the action can be somewhat predictable especially if you understand the game. This is also known as zone focusing. Zone focusing used to save my bacon shooting basketball in the days before AF.

Tip number four: Use lenses designed to be manual focused. The Nikkors of yesteryear, ie: the ones before AF, were wonderful lenses. They focus like a dream. I can’t even begin to follow focus with an AF lens in manual mode. They are simply not made to do that. I usually don’t even attempt to manual focus an AF lens. It is just no fun. If you have an older Nikon manual lens, it will work on your AF body in aperture priority and manual exposure modes. Try it.

Tip number five: You can do yourself a favor by limiting the photos you will have to shoot following focus on players moving directly at you. You can improve your odds by making the plane of focus more shallow by shooting at angles where the action moves parallel to your position as opposed to perpendicular to it. It is much easier to shoot a player moving across your field of view than it is to shoot a player moving straight at you.

Beyond those tips, you just have to practice and be persistent. Most of my best sports images have come from that beat up old 400mm f3.5 manual focus lens. I use it all the time and that is the key. I don’t have to think about it. I just pop it on and go.

About the photos: The top photo is from a Hartselle High school baseball game. The ball was hit to the right fielder and was fading away from him. He is diving to make the play on the ball. I shot with a Nikon D2Hs and the 400mm f3.5 manual lens wide open. The photo is just a tad soft and requires a bit of sharpening in Photoshop to make it workable. The second photo is from a tennis match and the focusing here is mostly incremental rather than a large differential so it is relatively easy to focus. This is also a D2Hs and a 400mm f3.5.\

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

When I was a young photojournalist, I religiously avoided shooting with the normal lens. In fact, I did not really own a normal lens. I had a 55mm micro but I never used it for my everyday assignments. I used my 24mm and my 180mm all the time. These were the most extreme lenses I had at that time.

Fast forward to the present day and I am still inclined to shoot with the extremes in my bag. However, it is not really avoiding the 50mm that I am talking about; although, I still have an allergic reaction to that lens. What I am really talking about is avoiding your normal. If you normally are a wide angle shooter, stretch yourself and shoot with long lenses every time you can. If you are normally a mid-range lens guy, then go to either extreme but get out of you middle ground. If you shoot mostly with the long glass, break out the wide angle and shoot as much as possible with it.

Breaking out of your normal routine literally forces you to see differently. It forces you to visualize photos that you were not even thinking about in your normal shooting mode. You have to think differently. You have to shoot differently. You have to leave your comfort zone and step outside of that proverbial box. This is good. Change is good. What will eventually happen to you is growth. You will grow as a shooter. You will get better. You can still get your money shots shooting the way you always have but after you have your safety shot, break your mold and go to an extreme.

Lighting is another area where you can fall into a routine, otherwise known as a rut. If you normally light everything, shoot a couple of projects documentary style and use no supplemental lighting. If you normally shoot everything available, jump the fence and do some stylized lighting on a few jobs. What you will find is that you will actually learn to see light better. You will learn to see natural light with new eyes. You will learn that lighting an assignment gives it an entirely new look.

Eventually you will learn to blend light in ways that are absolutely seamless. Mixing natural light and some form of supplemental light is a skill that is more valuable than just about any other you can acquire as a photographer. Unless you are a strict documentary journalist, just about every other form of photojournalism, and photography in general, require good lighting skills to advance your career.

When you break out of whatever your normal is, you will discover something has happened to you. You will have gotten better. You will have grown. You will look back at the way you used to shoot and wonder how you could have been stuck there. Your work will be full of a new energy. You will be reworking your portfolio or whatever material you use to promote yourself. Mostly you will just wonder how you had been stuck in normal mode and had not even realized it.

About the photo: For this photo of a brother/sister golf tandem, I broke several of my conventions. I used a wide lens which is not really my strength and I used a two light set up to augment the daylight. I also used an unexpected perspective on the photo. Essentially, I had a thirty minute drive to the assignment which was at the kids’ home. I used my imagination to come up with something out of my normal range and tried that first. It worked great but I also had a fall back photo just in case.

Photo copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Okay, maybe this one isn’t so fast unless you are one of those people who are instinctive photographers. I am not one of those truly gifted individuals. They simply stick a camera in front of their face and magical things happen in the viewfinder. For the rest of us, getting better is an exercise much like growing. It doesn’t happen all at once and it sometimes involves a lot of repetition and hard work. This is certainly one of those areas for me.

Layering is a visual term that basically means that you are creating various layers of visual interest in the frame. It can be done with lenses, composition and light and sometimes all three of them combined. There can be a couple of layers or there can be many layers. Frankly, in the newspaper business, layering is not always well received by folks who deal in words until it is fully explained. Too often, we simply want a photo that slaps the reader in the face and yells, “Hey, wake up and look at this!”

A layered photo can do this but as often as not a well layered image invites the viewer in deeper and deeper and allows him to stimulate various parts of his visual pallet much as a fine wine does for the aficionado. This is something that takes practice and patience to develop and patience is not one of my finest qualities. That means I have to consciously work at this. It is then easier to work on layering in situations where I am controlling everything such as the environmental portrait.

Now lets look at some photos and techniques. There are more than I am showing so don’t limit yourself to just these techniques. First, and to me, most obviously, use a wide angle lens and frame the subject using a framing device. This first photo is from the Downtown Criterium bike race in Decatur. There are three distinct layers in this image beginning with the bicycle tire which is the framing device. The second layer is actually the primary focus of the image which is the bikers followed by the third layer which is the buildings that form the background. This is the easiest technique to use and it is probably the one we all learned in photo school.

The next photo is one creating layers using the arrangement of the cheerleaders and their varying expressions. Theses two devices, the varying expressions and the foreground to background relationship of the way the girls are positioned, draws you in and invites you to look for a while seeing the varying degrees of reaction to whatever may be going on on the basketball court. The foreground element is dominant and it fills the bill for newspapers because it provides an immediate hook. Then the viewer slips into the photo to see the various reactions the girls are having. This is certainly not as common a situation for most of us but it works great when it is available.

The next photo combines two layering techniques, framing and light. The use of the gentleman’s hands serves as both a layer and a framing device leading you to his face. The lighting creates the second and third layers of the photo and helps center the viewers attention on his face. As a side note, this man was one of the first to go ashore on D-day in 1944 on Utah Beach in Normandy. He was a combat engineer whose job was to disable any mines and clear beach obstructions all while under fire. His company fared well unlike many others who were killed in their boats or on the beaches, especially those who landed on Omaha Beach, the other beach assigned to U.S. forces. I really liked this man and admired his courage.

Finally, the last photo is another using a combination of framing and lighting to lead the viewer in. This was shot while the Governor of Alabama was on a campaign stop in Decatur. I used a wide lens and an ambient light underexposure combined with flash to create the funnel effect that leads you to the Governor. My oldest son was with me this day and he subbed admirably for a moving light stand. I just told him where to go and who to point the flash at and we shot several varieties of the Governor moving through the crowd.

Now you have enough to get started so go knock your editors out with your new layering skills!

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

In the last post on backgrounds, I approached the subject of backgrounds with the idea of eliminating distractions that hurt your photos. Now, let’s look at how to make your background work for you. We don’t have total control over the background in most photojournalism situations. In most breaking situations you don’t have the time to even worry about the background. When you have time to work a photo you should really try to get the background to help tell the story.

Sometimes you just get lucky, or unlucky, with the background; however, like the old saying goes, luck favors the prepared. When you first approach a situation look at backgrounds. What will you shoot your subject against, even in an action situation. Is there a background that will contribute to the photo and also, is there a background you want to avoid? This is also a good time to figure out the best lens choice. Now, when the moment happens, you are prepared.

I have three photos with to show you here. The first is a stand alone photo of a kid fishing. I was able to make use of a high embankment and get above him which allowed me to isolate him against the water which was also reflecting the sunset clouds. By the way, this photo is also strobed. I set an SB8oo on a light stand and put it in the edge of the lake to give me a little bit of separation and a nice little kicker. I used a D2h and an 80-200 lens and fired the strobe using a Pocket Wizard set. Adding the strobe allowed me to go a little under on the water without losing detail in the boy.

The next photo is from a mud volleyball tournament held every year in Athens, Alabama to raise money for the elderly and homebound. I was waiting for someone to go header into the mud hoping that they would come up facing me. That never happened but when this girl did her own version of a face plant I was able to use the people watching to get a nice photo where the background helps tell the story. You can’t see the front of the girl but you can see the other people reacting to what they see. This photo was shot available light with a D2h and a 17-35mm lens.

The last photo is also a D2h and 17-35mm shot. Decatur hosts the NAIA National Softball Championship Tournament and it is one of the highlights of my year. I love to shoot that tournament. This was the championship day and I actually had to leave before the game ended to go shoot something else. Hoping that something would still be going on when I got back, I hustled through the job and found that the tournament had ended by the time I returned. Fortunately for me there was still some celebrating going on. The girl hugging her father turned out to be the tournament MVP and her teammates in the background are holding up their championship banner for a photo. I probably could have done no better even if I had been there at the end of the game. The foreground shows the emotion and the background tells you why. I love it when things come together.

When you are out shooting, plan and prepare as much as you can but be prepared for change. Don’t over focus on the background because you run the risk of losing site of the main subject. Keep your eyes open and work your angles and lenses to maximize the background. Some of the time a wide zoom will be appropriate and other times a long zoom will be the better choice. You have to make that determination on the scene. After you have done this for a while, you won’t even be thinking about the background consciously. You will simply develop a “sixth sense” for backgrounds and you will be shooting instinctively.

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Let’s talk about getting better fast. Clever how my lead sentence reflects my title isn’t it? Cleverness aside, there are some things you can do to get better in a hurry. Just don’t get so good that you come gunning for my job!

One of the things that separates the greenhorn from the cagey veteran is the way he handles backgrounds. The background of a photo can help, hurt or do nothing at all. When I was a young shooter one of the things that really got me was backgrounds. I was so intent on the main subject that I seldom noticed what was going on in the background. That sometimes still bites me but over the years I have gotten better at watching my backgrounds.

The photos in this post are an example of how the background can either help or hurt. The first shot of the cannon actually firing is a fine moment and I like the picture. The only problem is I can’t look at the photo without seeing those cars in the background. The cars totally ruin the feel of the picture. Were it not for the cars it could be 1864 all over again. (Yes, it is sadly true that in the South we still fight the Civil War and some here feel that we are winning!)

The next photo is just a few seconds later as they gunners swab the breech and smoke has completely obscured the background. Man, where is Matthew Brady? The smoke helps deliver a feeling that is missing in the first photo. The smokes erases the signs that we are in the present day. It also makes a perfectly clean backdrop that allows you to focus on the soldiers.

Most of the time you won’t have any cannon smoke handy to blot out your background. Do not fear, there are a bunch of other ways to handle a messy or distracting background. If you remember seeing the photo by Joe Johnston of the Cal Poly pitcher you will see a very effective use of the low angle to clean up the background. Now that you have the low down, go high angle. This is very effective in shooting sports because it gives you the relatively uncluttered playing surface for a background rather than the distractions of the sidelines or the fans.

Light can also be used to clean up the background. If you use strobes on the main subject, you can usually drop the background down to either deemphasize it or eliminate altogether. A long lens will help you blur a distracting background while the wide angle can be used to deemphasize the background because it creates a very dominant foreground while diminishing the size of objects in the background. There are many techniques for doing this and these are only a few. The main thing is learning to keep backgrounds from becoming a distraction in your pictures.

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Not too long ago, my co-worker Jonathan Palmer did a super shot of a guy driving his classic V-Dub beetle. He did the shot in fairly low light and used a strobe inside the car to provide the illumination. You can check out JP’s shot in his November gallery on his blog. The only problem is the image did not run. Well, it was a problem for Jonathan but a great boon to me. I loved the shot and though that it would be good to use the concept some time in the future.

Low and behold, I had the opportunity just last week. We were doing a story on a man who uses classic Rolls Royce autos in his limo business. The day was miserable, in fact I did the shoot between covering the two tornadoes last Friday. The man lives in the country so his home had to be the setting. I needed to get a portrait of him and I needed to limit the background which was a plowed field. I used Jonathan’s internal lighting scheme with a Vivitar 285HV laid on the seat beside him. The ambient light on the field was about 1/2 stop below the strobe and the front of the car was at least one stop below the strobe.

The real key to making this happen was to position the car so that some dark foliage was strategically blocking the light from the sky so I could see him inside the car. He had some tall evergreens in his yard that allowed me to have the area of windshield where he was seated to be free from the reflected sky light. Keep in mind that shiny objects will reflect whatever they “see.” This applies to a table top product shot just as well as it does to a car’s windshield. You can see my slacks reflected in some of the chrome on the front of the car. There was just nothing I could do about that.

The shot has real nice contrast because the paint is dark which creates a low key feel but the chrome gives some really nice highlight and, combined with the strobe, makes the shot really work from the lighting standpoint. I did the two versions you see here and we ran the tighter shot which was my favorite. The photo ran with a couple of other images that showed more of the car. For those of you reading this in the English Isles, the Rolls Royce is no big deal and you see them all the time. Let’s just say they are pretty rare in North Alabama so showing the car was a major part of the assignment.

Now when you check out Jonathan’s shot, you should know that he did his while driving down the road in front of the other car with his Canon D1 and a 300 2.8 hand held, out the window, backwards and without looking through the viewfinder. And he nailed it on the first frame. Jonathan is known by some around here as a legend, or just J-Ledge for short. By the way, he and I are partners in a real estate venture selling ocean front property in Arizona so drop us a line if you are interested. The prices are incredible!

About the photos: Both shots were done using a Canon EOS 5D with a 24-70 f2.8 lens, pocket wizards and a Vivitar 285HV. I believe the Vivitar was set to 1/4 power and was aimed at the roof of the car on its widest zoom setting. The exposure for ambient was about one stop under the metered exposure to ensure the car would drop down to a true black allowing the chrome and the guy to shine.

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

I am back from vacation in the snowy north and fully recharged. I am going to begin a new feature on the blog by doing a critique on a photo from the A Little News Pool and Richard Hamm is my first victim. Richard is a college student, prime target audience for this blog and I asked him if he minded being first. He graciously agreed so here we go. By the way, the rest of you may not be so lucky. I may just nab your photo and slice it up without telling you! HA!

Actually, there is very little slicing to do on this photo. Richard is the photo editor for The Red and Black, the student produced newspaper at the University of Georgia. There are a few things I want to highlight in this photo because they showcase excellent visual thinking. The first thing that Richard did that is excellent, especially in one so young!!, is he previsualized the shot. To do a photo like this you have to see it in your head, or at least see it somewhere else and apply the technique to your own work. You will notice the excellent use of the track’s lighting to add depth to the image. This is another aspect of seeing. The track’s lighting provides a sense of the scale of the track that would be missing if the back corner were dark. Richard saw this and took advantage of it.

Another of the very nice touch is the serpentine nature of the race course which gives us the nice little wiggle in the trailing lights. Finally, and this can’t be overstated, Richard used the right lens for the job. The photo has enough compression to hold together evidencing the use of at least a short telephoto, in this case a 70 mm. A wide shot of this would fall apart and the light trail would diminish too much to be of any visual use. The longer lens slightly compresses the foreground/background relationship and holds the image together. All in all, a very nice job of photojournalism. You can see more of Richard’s work plus his portfolio at www.rahphoto.wordpress.com

Photo copyright Richard Hamm. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer or of Richard Hamm.

This post is by David Higginbotham whom I worked with for several years at The Decatur Daily. David is now a contract photographer for NASA and a freelancer shooting weddings, portraits and bands. In addition to his photographic skills which are considerable, David is an excellent musician. He is also a good friend. I assist him from time to time on weddings and am continually amazed at his ability.

I got my first job as a photographer at a small newspaper near by hometown called The Athens News-Courier when I was 16. I Freelanced basketball games for $25 a pop. They would give me hand rolled canisters of T-max and in return I would give them sub par photos. However the photos were good enough to get me hired on permanently the month after I graduated high school.

The Courier gig led me to The Decatur Daily in 1998 and I was a full time shooter there until 2003. I was learning all I could from 3 other photographers who had been in the business for as long as I had been in the world (Sorry guys…I know that hurts a little). It didn’t take me long to fall in love with photojournalism. Even in a small market it was awesome! My Noon-9:00pm shift yielded me everything from hostage situations to used cars. In my opinion nothing does more to sharpen the skills of a young photographer than newspaper work. It’s a baptism by fire that makes you learn to deal with more of life’s experiences in a week than a cubicle jockey will in a career.

But much like many photojournalists, I reached a crossroads in my career where I had to make a decision about my future. I had an opportunity to leave the world of photojournalism and venture into a government job. I would still be a photographer….but I would leave the newspaper world behind. I would be more of a cube jockey than I had ever been.

I became a photographer at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). It’s hard to describe to people what I shoot at Marshall but to say it is diverse is an understatement. From something as mundane as an awards ceremony to something as exciting as a shuttle launch….we shoot it all.

Here’s the story of one of my most published images. About 3 years ago I was sent to Sandusky, Ohio to photograph prototypes of something called a solar sail. It works on the theory that objects in space can be propelled with a large super light material opened up much like the sail on a boat. Except that instead of wind it used photons from the sun (somewhere an engineer is shaking his head at my poor explanation.) I was taken to the largest vacuum chamber in the world where my job was to take a “glamour shot” of what was basically a Mylar balloon spread over several trusses.

I setup 8 remote flashes underneath of the sail. At the time I didn’t have access to any pocket wizards so I was using a couple of Quantum Instruments radio slaves. The rest of the flashes were firing using their optical slaves so I had to do a lot of playing with angles to make sure everything was “seeing” the other flashes. The vantage point that I used for the first image was from a crows nest type area 123’ above the sail.

The flashes were placed under the sail inside looking out with 4 gelled with blue and 4 gelled with red. The light for the top of the sail came from the ambient light in the room. This worked out great considering that at this point I was completely out of flashes. The next image was shot from something called a spider lift that crawled us up the side of the room. The company who produced the sail wanted to put their people under it to give it scale.

This image actually got published double-truck in Popular Science. This started a chain reaction that wound up in this image being published in several magazines worldwide. Oh and for all of you FotoQuote junkies out there….don’t bother asking the circulation of all these magazines…images I shoot for MSFC are usage free….public domain….free. That’s normally not hard to stomach….but when several magazines give you that kind of play…you start crunching those potential numbers!

Working as a photojournalist in my early years prepared me for all of the amazing opportunities and challenges that I have faced in my career thus far. The things that all of you are learning on Cosby’s blog are invaluable to you especially if you are just getting started in this field. You may not always find yourself shooting the most exciting things but if you take pride in your work you can keep yourself entertained and provide the best possible product for your client/customer/editor.

A special thanks to Gary Cosby Jr. for allowing me this opportunity to write on his blog.

If you are interested in seeing some of my other work, please visit my website at www.davidhphotography.com.

NASA is the source of all images in this post. David Higginbotham’s words
are in no way endorsed by NASA nor do they reflect the views and opinions of
NASA. These words do not reflect a NASA endorsement of any commercial
product, service, or activity.

There is never really an automatic in anything you shoot so take this with a grain of salt. If there is an automatic photo in baseball, it is a shot of the pitchers and hitters. I say it is an automatic shot because they are in the same relative place on every play and they are both involved in every play and, if you work your angles and moments and light, you can get really nice pictures. Shooting the pitchers and hitters also give you that fall back photo you can rely on. Just don’t overdo it.

My favorite angle for shooting the pitcher is from directly behind home plate. I will use the batter and catcher/umpire to frame the pitcher when I can. An alternative, especially for softball where that distance is greatly reduced, is to focus on the pitcher’s face which can be very expressive. People used to tell me when I pitched in high school that I made the most awful faces so I have kept that in mind and I try to shoot facial expression whenever I can.

Once again, my stand by lens if the 400mm. It get me tight enough for a good shot on most baseball fields and it puts me right in the eyeballs on softball fields. The only problem you can run into is the shallow depth of field which can throw significant portions of the pitcher out of focus as he or she moves toward the plate to deliver the pitch. My little trick for baseball is it to find the place on the mound where the pitcher’s front foot lands and prefocus there. Usually the pitcher releases the ball about that time and his face will be leaning toward the plate. In softball, the pitching motion is entirely different and the most dramatic portion of the delivery is where the pitcher has the ball at the top of the circular rotation which puts it over her head and slightly behind her. This usually happens when her front foot is in midair during the middle of the delivery. This means I prefocus about halfway between the pitching rubber and where her feet land. You can tweak you focus by checking the image in you lcd display and work it as needed to find the right focal point.

For shooting photos of the batter, I like to be down the first baseline for right handers and down the third baseline for lefties. This position puts me facing the batter. This is not hard and fast because some nice photos can be made from behind the batter as he follows through on the swing or gets hit by the pitch. The 400mm is very, very tight when I am close enough to get expression. This can work for me at times and against me at other times. For a more loose image I will switch to the 80-2oo. If I want to get the ball coming off the bat, the shorter lens is usually better.

The real trick to shooting the hitter is to get the person, the ball and the bat all in the frame at the same time. Lacking this bit of luck, I will settle for the ball and the person. You can time this as you shoot regardless of the speed of your motor drive. I admit that 8fps is much better than 3 fps but it really is all about timing. No matter how fast the motor drive, you will never have the ball in more than one frame.

Keep in mind that shooting the hitter and pitcher is nice as long as it is not overdone. I use this technique as my primary picture when I am pressed for time or in one of those games where the pitching is the story. A kid may be throwing a shutout or a no-hitter and you better have a good frame of the pitcher from those games. Likewise, when a person is having a great game at the plate, it is a good idea to have a photo of him too. He doesn’t have to be slugging a homerun but you definitely need something of him at the plate.

About the photos: All these images are shot with the 400mm f3.5. The top photo is from an NAIA National Championship game where the young lady pitching was dominating the tournament and turned out to be the MVP. She is a bit intense. The second photo is from a high school baseball game between cross-town rivals Decatur and Austin with this photo being of the Austin pitcher. Just a cool bit of motor drive timing placed the ball right on the pitcher’s nose. The next photo is from a youth league where the little guy is attempting to bunt. From my own playing days I found it more useful to keep the eyes open but it did make for a nice picture. And finally, this shot comes from a high school baseball game and another bit of motor driven happiness caught the ball hanging just in front of the hitter’s face.

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

I love baseball. I loved playing baseball and I love shooting baseball. As a kid I dreamed of playing major league baseball. I kept all the bubble gum cards and still have a few of my well worn favorites stuffed away in a shoe box in my closet. I loved the Big Red Machine and Johnny Bench and Pete Rose were my favorite players. That Charlie Hustle attitude is still part of me even though I don’t get to play baseball anymore. There just isn’t much demand for 44 year olds who don’t do steroids!

Still, I love to shoot the game and I really don’t care if it is children playing in their youth leagues or high school players and I would love to shoot a pro game someday. Baseball is a game of moments. A key hit, a diving catch or an important play at the plate. You have to be ready because the game can lull you into a sense of complacency. My dad coached me as a little boy and he used to tell me to know what I would do with the ball before any pitch was made for every at bat. In other words, stay mentally prepared.

Anticipating in the action can really increase your chances of getting a nice image. Is there a runner on second? Get ready for a play at the plate because any ball hit to the outfield can result in a close play at home. Lead off hitter get on first? Be ready for a steal or a double play situation around second base. Power hitter at the plate? Be ready for him to pull the ball down one of the lines. Knowing the game helps but just watching tendencies will also improve your chances.

I mostly cover high school and youth leagues and most of the time a ground ball will be hit to either shortstop or third base so it just makes sense to prefocus on the shortstop. Knowing that a runner might steal a base lets me be prefocused on that base. Especially in softball, I am always ready for a ball to be hit to the third baseman. Then everything becomes a matter of timing rather than a mad scramble to try and keep up with the action. There is nothing worse in shooting baseball than being half a second behind the play because you will never get that key photo. Anticipate and be prepared.

That doesn’t mean it is hopeless if you don’t know the game very well. Famed photographer George Silk who shot for Life magazine back in the hey day came from Europe and didn’t know anything about American sports. His theory was to go out and just make great photographs at a sporting event the same as he would covering any other event. His approach stands in stark contrast to guys like Neil Leifer who, if there is an icon of American sports photography, is that icon. Both men were great photographers and they used opposite approaches. No matter what approach you take, go out there and make great photographs. The action will come in time.

That reminds me. It doesn’t matter what level of the sport you are covering, shoot like it is a major league game. Some of my best baseball images have come from youth league games. If you approach the little guys with energy and enthusiasm you will find more emotion, more of the ball flying around and more of the fun of sports than in any other place. This game really is great at all levels. Give me baseball, hot dogs and apple pie pretty much any day and I am a happy man.

About the photos: The first photo is one I got yesterday on a play at the plate. The high angle cleans up the background and, fortunately, the ump did not move into the frame as sometimes happens when shooting from the third base side. The rest is just motor drive and a nice moment. The second photo is from the shortstop attempting to make a play on a hard hit ball. This, being a softball game, was an 80-200mm lens also from a high angle. When you can get a little elevation you can really clean up the backgrounds.

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and are not necessarily those of my employer.