I made some photographs of a friend's son playing football in the championship game for their high school league on Saturday. Adam Porthan, the #22 defensive linebacker, did a really good job and fought hard even though they lost the game. He made the All Conference Team and is a good player.
The experience showed me how rusty my skills are. I shot close to 500 photographs but could only find 49 that were good. That 10::1 ratio is a lot like what National Geographic photographers shoot, but I think it ought to be lower than that for me. The editing mostly involves throwing away many shots.
It is difficult shooting sporting events because the action is fast and furious and it is also hard to know where to position yourself for the right photographs at the right time. Furthermore, figuring out the incredible array of camera settings that can be used for specialized sports photography can be daunting. There are literally dozens of possibilities. The focusing, exposure and light color quality have to be combined at just the right moment with good composition in order to get anything that reflects the action. I also tried to make photographs that showed the personal side of Adam's play...after all, these photographs are for his personal scrap book, and I needed to show him up front and close and how deeply he cared about the play, the score, and his team.
But, I also had fun doing all this work. I love the way photography puts the viewer into the scene and I think I got some of that here. I also love the idea of making photographs like this because it gets me close to that action and I feel much more connected to the game.
RPW
The experience showed me how rusty my skills are. I shot close to 500 photographs but could only find 49 that were good. That 10::1 ratio is a lot like what National Geographic photographers shoot, but I think it ought to be lower than that for me. The editing mostly involves throwing away many shots.
It is difficult shooting sporting events because the action is fast and furious and it is also hard to know where to position yourself for the right photographs at the right time. Furthermore, figuring out the incredible array of camera settings that can be used for specialized sports photography can be daunting. There are literally dozens of possibilities. The focusing, exposure and light color quality have to be combined at just the right moment with good composition in order to get anything that reflects the action. I also tried to make photographs that showed the personal side of Adam's play...after all, these photographs are for his personal scrap book, and I needed to show him up front and close and how deeply he cared about the play, the score, and his team.
But, I also had fun doing all this work. I love the way photography puts the viewer into the scene and I think I got some of that here. I also love the idea of making photographs like this because it gets me close to that action and I feel much more connected to the game.
RPW