Softball: NC State Huddle

Sunday was a crazy day... The ACC Softball Championship game, senior photos for the Terrapin baseball team, and the NCAA Women's Lacrosse tournament all kicked off at 1pm. Earlier in the week I sent out a call-to-arms for DCSB shooters and writers, but my rally call fell on deaf ears. Nobody was willing to come out and cover one of the events for us, and I was forced to improvise.

Dave and I planned to cover the softball and baseball events but that left the women's lacrosse event up for grabs. It was arguably one of the most important events but I wanted to make sure that we had coverage of the softball game. The baseball seniors mattered a lot to us as well because we covered 12+ games for the Terps this season. To blow them off on their senior day would not be good...

But this post is about NC State Softball...

Before the teams were introduced Dave and I talked with an assistant coach for NC State. She asked who we shot with and if they could pick up some pictures from us. We both responded that she could, and Dave offered her our card. The tough part here is working within the confines of the DCSB while also supporting the teams. Al's position is that he doesn't want to offer photos for free to people, and I agree with that position to a certain standpoint. But I think there's a difference between offering photos for free to parents and fans vs providing photos to the teams themselves. There is clearly a difference in selling a $10 photo for private use to the parents of a player vs providing a photo to the NC State University for use in their media guide.

Right now we're young and trying to figure all of this out. Should we charge MORE to NCSU for the photo since they are an organization that plans on distributing the photo? Or should we charge LESS because our organization will get more reach and we'll get in good with NCSU? I don't know. Selling the photo is a quick win for us, but what's the long term cost? I don't know.

I've pursued software development for so long and issues like this come up often. When they arise I never have doubts in picking the correct path. Experience guides me in the right direction. But with sports photography all I have is intuition. So far my experience in sports photography has taught me that the players in this game are very different from the players in software development. They are territorial, predatory, arrogant, belligerent, and confrontational.

Can I draw upon my successful experience in software development to help me plot the right path in this confused environment? Maybe. Julie offers a lot of ideas and insight, but she also lacks experience in this domain. Both of us are software engineers and as a result we try to keep our head above water and above the fray. Will that strategy work in photography?

The nice thing about shooting huddles is that the regular sports photographers consider this beneath them and thus don't pay much attention to them. That offers me a chance to shoot something unusual that might be valuable to someone.

Softball: Georgia Tech vs Virginia

I believe 5 games were scheduled for Friday. Only 1 actually took place. The Washington DC region was caught up in ridiculous rain event that brought 2-3 inches to the area in a constant downpour during the day on Friday. As a result most of the games for Friday were pushed until Saturday morning.

I was scheduled to cover the 5:30pm and 8pm games. The first revised schedule I received pushed the 5:30pm game back to 7pm and the 8pm back to 9:30. I kinda cringed at the thought of starting a softball game at 9:30pm. It wouldn't end until 11pm at the earliest. Post processing (photo touch up and article writing) takes nearly 2 hours if I know the team. When it's two unknown teams it takes me longer. And when I get home I like to touch base with Julie for awhile to catch up on what's new in her life. With a 9:30pm start time I wouldn't get home until 11:30. Then I'd catch up with Julie until midnight at the earliest, and I wouldn't wrap up my post processing until 0200 at the earliest. That's a tough schedule.

Fortunately they called the 9:30pm game and pushed it to Saturday morning. That left just 1 game to shoot on Friday night. Although I was happy at the prospect of not going to bed at 2:30am Saturday morning I was also a little sad at not having another game to shoot.

It was a bit unusual to shoot a game at the softball field knowing that Maryland was eliminated from contention, but that's part of the job I suppose. It was still fun watching two teams fight it out for a win, but it wasn't the same without a Terrapin jersey in the mix. At the same time there was a strange disassociation I had with the event: I really didn't care who won and who lost...

Dave informed me that he had spoken with someone from Maryland who gave us the nod to sell some photos from the event. I was happy to hear that we received the approval. Without their thumbs-up we'd be risking a lot. And I anticipated a bunch of requests in the following week for photos of the tournament.

Softball: Maryland Terrapins vs Boston College

After a 20 minute intermission the Terps took to the field after the NCSU vs GT game. I was pleased to see the Terps take to their home field and hoped that they would win so they could continue their drive into the ACC Tournament. Unfortunately the Terps fell behind early and couldn't recover, losing 2-0 to the Eagles.

I really can't say enough about how well the D3 performs. The D3 is leaps and bounds beyond the low-light capabilities of my D200. The D200 can shoot up to ISO1600 without noticeable noise. But it quickly degrades in it's quality before reaching ISO 3200. On the other hand the D3 can safely shoot at ISO 4000 with the same level of noise as a D200 at ISO1600. I have no metrics to back that up ... just photos. You can go take a look at my D200 vs D3 high ISO low light comparisons on my Flickr page.

I enjoyed taking photos at the softball game. I used the 300mm f/2.8 lens that I'm demoing from Nikon. I used my monopod for most of the shoot but felt pretty cheesy in the process. I hand-hold my 400mm f/2.8 lens during basketball and the 300mm f/2.8 is considerably smaller and lighter. A monopod is pretty awkward to lug around and it can be restrictive when you lean up against a wall or on the side of the dugout.

From time to time I'd shift off to just hand holding the 300mm and I was much happier.

I also used the 14-24 f/2.8 lens Nikon loaned me for some experimental photos. I was really happy with this picture of a dark blue sky while overlooking the Maryland Terrapins dugout in the 2008 ACC Softball Tournament.

During the evening I talked with a few parents in the stands who requested photos of their daughter in the competition. I handed them my card and asked them to contact me. Earlier last week I talked with Al and Dave about DCSB selling some Softball photos. Having been approached several times on the first night I felt vindicated in my pre-emptive requests that we figure out how to handle these orders from fans. Sure enough it panned out ... we were there, moving around and getting the shots, and people wanted to buy our photos.

The issue of selling collegiate photos is a tangled web of interpretation and legal precendent that we have very little experience navigating. Personally I expect we'll screw up at some point and go down the wrong path and upsetting an apple cart somehow.

At the highest level, the NCAA is concerned about the commercialization of student athletes. If I'm a credentialed photographer at an NCAA basketball event, and one of my photos is used to hype a Nike shoe that can be used against the student athlete in the photo. The NCAA can (and has) revoked a year of eligibility for the player and banned the photographer from NCAA events.

The conference can come after you too. There are stories of different conferences (e.g. ACC, CAA, Big-EAST, PAC-10) pursuing civil suits against individual photographers after photos of student athletes have appeared in periodicals that the conference determined to be "commercial" (non-editorial) in nature.

And then you have the individual school. Let's say that the parent of a student athlete wants to buy one of your photos so they can print it and put it up in their family room. Seems like private use and there shouldn't be any problems, right? No... Sure you may be clear from an NCAA and conference, but you still have to obtain the school's permission? Why? Because the school's logo appeared prominently in the photo. And the student attends the school. The school may have a deal with a local photographer they use whereby the school gets a cut of whatever revenues are generated by the local photographer for the sale of photos. As a result they may not want you to sell photos.

Although the school may not be able to legally block you from selling photos they can block your entrance to events by declining your credential requests.

In summary ... be careful if you want to sell photos of college athletes. Get permission from your school before you try to do it. This is what I'm doing at the DC Sports Box. It's better to partner with and work with people in this realm than to make assumptions and work against them.

All that being said, Maryland has been good to us and gave us the nod to sell some photos from this weekend's event. With their official nod, and a few requests from the fans, I'm looking forward to turning the page in the history book for our young organization and seeing what's ahead.

Will selling photos turn into something substantial for us? Or will it backfire somehow? Will it aggravate other photographers? I don't know... All I know is that we have to move forward and as we take these steps into the unknown all we can do is do our best to stay inbounds and off anyone's official shit list. Here's hoping we can color within the lines...

Softball: Georgia Tech vs NC State

After working onsite with a customer all day I shrugged off my laptop shell and headed down to College Park to shoot the 2008 ACC Softball Tournament. All season we've observed the signs pointing out the tournament this coming Spring. Al put us in for credentials and we were granted access.

The Maryland athletic department has been very good to us this Spring and that makes me really happy. In the Fall we (I) had a lot of problems getting into events and obtaining access to the field. I think that Maryland has finally warmed up to us and is starting to work with us on a more regular and positive basis. Dave Lovell has really played a big role in this.

Dave's shot a lot of softball games this spring and written a lot of articles. His presence at the games has been noticed and that's been helpful to us. As a result when we requested credentials for the ACC Tournament we were granted them without any problems.

I was pleased to be able to shoot this event. Softball is fun - it's such a small stadium, the players all yell and scream for their team, and the fans are very loyal. It lacks the formality of a basketball event but it makes up for that in the friendly atmosphere that unfolds on a late Thursday afternoon at the ballpark.

When I arrived I grabbed my 14-24mm f/2.8 lens and attached it to my D3 body and headed down to the field. I towed along my 300mm lens for later use, but for the player intros I wanted to shoot wide.

The players were great and didn't object to my presence on the field at all. If my Maryland experience is anywhere similar to what happens on their campuses it means they've had very little exposure during their season. They were all happy and excited that somebody was there photographing their participation in the ACC Tournament.

Of course there weren't any other members of the media present other than the official ACC Photographer. That didn't surprise me at all...

The game was a lot of fun to shoot and I got some decent shots while the sun was still out. The games were all shifted around due to rain in the area and the 5pm start time was pushed back to 7:30pm. Light was tough to find but it existed...

While there Dave told me that a bunch of people approached him with interest in purchasing some photos from the events. He's working with Maryland to obtain authorization for that. If it pans out it'll be a step in a new direction for the DC Sports Box. As with all new steps it brings risk... We'll have to see how it pans out.

In the mean time please go over to the DC Sports Box website and read about the ACC Softball Tournament, Day 1 results.

Baseball: Maryland Terrapins vs Towson

Baseball's not my favorite sport to shoot, but this afternoon I was longing for Shipley field. I walked outside around 3pm to get something from my car and the weather was so nice. I really looked forward to packing up my laptops and heading down to College Park to shoot a game.

I arrived and found there to be no photographers present. Well actually there was one photographer present: a person from the Diamondback who I've only seen at one other game (the one last night).

I was hoping I'd bump into Greg so we could catch up. I haven't seen him in a few weeks and I've been curious if he's been working a lot on Nationals games in the new stadium. I also wanted to ask him what his plan was for the weekend to see if there was any way we could help him out. But he wasn't there so I guess our catching up will have to wait.

The Terps played Nate Steelman (aka Nathan Steelman, aka Nathaniel Steelman) this evening. He faced 2 batters. The guy from the Sun missed him, and who knows if Steelman will get another shot at pitching this weekend. Hopefully he will and the Sun shooter will get his shot.

Dave Lovell did a good job today with sending out an invite to our entire photos group that details this weekend's activities at Maryland. I set up a schedule a week or so ago in Google Calendar and Dave moved it over into Excel so he could send it out in PDF format. I would've preferred Google Calendar for the collaborative aspect of it, but in the end it probably doesn't matter much with this group of people. They don't seem to be the most technically savvy people I've met and asking them to do collaborative calendaring might be asking a bit much.

The important thing I'm looking for is that people other than me are communicating and doing it in a way that allows the rest of the group to learn. I don't want to create a chain-of-command, or a master-slave relationship at the DC Sports Box. I'm shooting for an informal loosely-knitted group of people that self-organize in ways that are highly transparent. I view the role of the DC Sports Box "editors" to be: provide infrastructure, get out of the way, and help people excel at what they do. The three roles go hand in hand: infrastructure (email lists, IMs, peer-to-peer relationships between photographers and writers) allow the management structure to get out of the way. Management still exists, but it's focus is to make sure that the engine is running efficiently and to make sure we're going in the right direction. Management doesn't necessarily take care of scheduling the timing of the events, who works them, etc ... it just makes sure that the events aren't getting missed. Lastly, we need to just get out of the way and let people excel at what they do best. We should offer some coaching advice when necessary but we need to let photographers go work the crowd, writers to promote their work, and IT people to go wire up new extensions for our site.

All of this is unfolding and will come together in the next few weeks as a business plan for our group. Right now I'm just focusing on putting together thoughts, defining roles, and encouring people to begin thinking of us as a cloud rather than a bunch of individuals. It's a challenge, but hopefully it's one that we can overcome.

In the meantime, please go read about Maryland Baseball's 7-4 win over Towson at the DC Sports Box. Or you can go directly to my Flickr Page that shows pictures of Maryland's 7-4 win over Towson.

Baseball: Maryland Terrapins vs UMES

I've had a few days off (maybe a week) to recharge my camera batteries and it's been some welcome time. It was good to get outside and behind the lens again this evening and I'm sure I'll miss it more during the summer as the shooting opportunities become fewer and further in between. I'm completely sure I'll miss the convenience of Maryland Athletics in comparison to Mystics, Freedom, and Nationals games.

There are a lot of events to cover this weekend. I received word on Sunday that the first rounds of both the men's and women's 2008 NCAA Lacrosse Tournament will be played at Maryland. The men descend on Byrd Stadium at 12 noon and the women take over the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex at 1pm on Sunday. Both of these high profile events conflict with other events. On Saturday the Terps host the 2008 ACC Softball Tournament semifinal rounds at noon and 2pm. On Sunday the Terrapin baseball has their senior photos, and the 2008 ACC Softball Tournament championship game is played.

Dave Lovell is lending a hand but we could use some more support. Al has taken a somewhat laid-back approach to this weekend's activities and said "we just can't cover it all." I'd like for us to cover as much of it as possible so I'm reaching out to other photographers I know hoping they can step in and lend a hand.

Greg Fiume will also be caught up in this mix. I've wondered what he plans to do with all the events that will take place at roughly the same time. I hoped to bump into him tonight at the baseball game, but given it was against UMES and on a Tuesday night I gave that a 1 in 10 shot of actually happening. Hopefully he'll be at the game tomorrow evening against Towson.

I asked Al to submit me for credentials for the men and women's LAX games. Hopefully he's taking care of that and I'll hear back soon that I was approved. Al's not very communicative through email or telephone and lots of times photographers (and writers) are left uninformed as to the status of their credentials. Sometimes we don't find out until the day of the event. This presents a lot of scheduling conflicts and introduces an unnecessarily level of stress into an already pretty tense (and fledgling) business. I've tried to encourage everyone at the DC Sports Box to communicate more frequently through email, instant messaging, text messaging, phone calls, etc but it seems to fall on deaf ears for the most part. A few of us instant message each other, but we're by no means a majority. I hope this will improve in the future.

Tonight's game was a quickie: just over 2 hours. That's lightning fast for a baseball game. Of course the Terps played a team they have a 5-45 record overall against so that helps. The stands were nearly empty. There were probably 50 people on hand for the event so it was very easy to move around.

I saw a Baltimore Sun photographer on the field who was there to take pictures of #11 Nathan Steelman. The Sun is doing a feature on him where they highlight his service in the US Army. I recognized the photographer from men's basketball games, but I couldn't remember his name.

We talked about online-only entities vs print media, and I told him that we really embrace the richer content we can deliver online. It was nice to describe to someone the richness of online media (podcasts, video, high resolution imagery, sound, smooth transitions between photos in slideshows, mouseovers, interactive behavior through blogs and comments) and have them actually listen to me. Most of the time when I say we're "online only" I get looks from people like "you're one of those people..."

As always you can find my photos of the game over on my Flickr Account and you can read my article and view my photos that highlight Maryland's 6-0 win over UMES in college baseball.

Baseball: Maryland Terrapins vs Old Dominion

I've had a photoset in my queue for almost two weeks and I finally got through it tonight. Both Dave and I attended the Terrapin's game against Old Dominion. I offered to write the article and we would use his photos. I wanted to "give him the night off" from the writer's desk since he's been doing so much work for us lately.

News at the DC Sports Box has been very positive as of late. Yuchen and Al had a bit of a problem over getting Yuchen's name submitted for a credential for the women's and men's 2008 ACC Tournament at the University of Virignia in Charlottesville, but they squared it away the day before the event. I'd really like for us to become more proficient at submitting credentials and communicating their status. I think I could whip up a quick Django app to handle it for us.

It's a good thing that Yuchen headed to the tournament because we've been swamped with requests for photos from various players and athletic departments. The University of Virginia is interested in including some of his photos in their media guide. It's exciting and rewarding when we receive recognition for our work. I've considered Yuchen to be one of the best photographers I know and I'm happy that he's getting the attention he deserves.

Al has talked a lot about the dilemma of us charging for prints. On one hand the NCAA specifically permits the selling of photos for "private use". But on the other hand it's up to the individual school's media relations department to decide whether or not they will offer you credentials to their events. What that boils down to is: the NCAA makes the rule, but the school is the ultimate judge. If they don't approve of you selling prints then you're not going to be able to sell your prints.

In the next week or two we're going to cover several high profile NCAA sporting events in the Washington DC area, and I anticipate some requests for photos will be forthcoming. We'd like to get all of this stuff behind us so that we can move on to bigger and better challenges, and in that light we're going to extend our hand to the University of Maryland to see how they would react to us selling our photos for private use.

I'm not quite sure what to expect from this, and the eventual outcome for use remains a mystery. Will Maryland flat-out reject our request? Will Greg Fiume interpret this as competitive behavior? How will this impact our presence on the field at events? These questions, along with many additional questions, weight heavily on my mind as we take these steps forward into uncertain territory. The last situation any of us desire is to create a conflict with either Maryland or Greg.

It will be interesting to see how things go over the next few days to say the least.

On other fronts... As the Terps wind down their Spring schedule I'm forced to look back at a full year of sports photography. It's truly been a transformational experience. What started as an interesting side-project that cost $500 for a D40 and an 18-55 variable aperture kit lens has turned into a full-fledged second job (albeit unpaid for the time being) that has infringed on my day job on more than one occasion. I've partnered up with some excellent writers and other photographers and have worked alongside them both in the field and in the ether as we upgrade and improve our site.

Last year I was greatly saddened at the end of the Spring season and the departure of Maryland athletics from my weekly routine. This Spring I look back on the games I've covered as well as the Maryland games that Dave and Yuchen have covered with happiness in seeing the growth of my own photographic skills as well as the growth of our group. As I focus on the few months ahead of relatively slow activity I look forward to improving our site, growing our business, bringing in new people, and expanding our reach. I view the summer as a vacation from the 2 games per week and 5 on the weekend sprint that unfolded last Fall and this Spring. With some luck I'll be able to sit back on my MacBook Pro, sling some Python, and transform our site into a pluggable, mashable, web 2.0 experience that will really distinguish us from the competition. Oh the places we'll go!

But for now it's time for bed. There aren't too many games left this Spring and they promise to be exciting. Make sure to check back (or have your aggregator check back for you!)