One Game at a Time

Last evening my hopes of capturing a close friend's wedding came to a grinding halt when the assistant photographer forbid me from photographing my friends (the bride and groom) and accused me of interfering during the ceremony. My wife and I had a hearty laugh at her accusation - we both sat next to each other 4 seats in from the aisle and 3rd row from the back. We laughed because I didn't take any pictures during the ceremony. I'm not sure how that qualifies as interference but anyhow...

This afternoon I attended the Terrapins field hockey game against the Richmond Spiders. Coach Missy Meharg has been a dominating force in field hockey the past several years and the Terrapins have consistently been ranked in the top-10 for awhile. I enjoy the field hockey games because the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex is a great venue for photography, the game itself offers action shots, and the environment is very low-stress.

The weather during the day was highly variable. It was rainy, then cloudy, and then really sunny for a bit. The humidity shot up and then the temperature dropped when a rain cloud passed over. It was really all over the map.

I crossed my fingers for a sunny game but also welcomed an overcast sky if that's the way nature was going to play it. A full sun really makes the photos "pop" but at the same time you risk catching a lot of shadows. That limits where you can shoot from. Practically speaking you wouldn't want to shoot directly into the sun because the players faces would be in the shadows. In order to properly expose the players you'd have to overexpose the background.

On the other hand if you can position yourself with the sun over your shoulders and the players marching towards you then you'll capture some great shots. The Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex is set up such that the Terps shoot at the open end of the stadium in the second half. The sun sets over the left corner of the open end of the stadium, meaning I'm able to catch the team shooting into the sun in the second half. In the first half I'm at about a 60 degree angle from the sun being directly behind me because I shoot from a sideline rather than the endzone.

When theres a lot of overcast the sunlight is diffused and you won't have any problems with shadows. The positive aspect of the highly diffused sunlight is that you can reliably expose the players faces without concern that part of their face will be hidden in a shadow. You're also able to position yourself in the spot that's most likely to catch the best action in the game because you're not competing with the sunlight for exposure. You can shoot right into the direction of the sun but with the diffusion from the clouds you don't have to worry about the halo effect around the players hair.

The negative aspect of highly diffused sunlight is that the colors won't "pop" and the image looks flat. You can correct for this in post-processing to some extent by increasing saturation or vibrancy along with bringing out the blacks in the photo and increasing contrast. But when you doctor the photo so extensively the image appears artificial.

The best time of day for sports photography is in the mid to late afternoon when the sun is lower in the sky. When the sun is directly overhead (e.g. a noon game) the player can easily cast a shadow on their face by looking downward. In sports players tend to look towards the ground because they keep their eye on a ball or stick. As a result they often cast a shadow on their face when the sun is overhead. When the sun is low in the sky their face will be properly illuminated even when they look down.

Wedding photographers are experts at the use of diffused or reflected light. Most outdoor photographs of brides and grooms take place under a tree, behind a building, or when clouds are overhead. They understand how to use the available light to their advantage and a highly diffused light source produces few shadows.

This afternoons game was a lot of fun because the sun started to get low in the sky by the time the second half rolled around and the Terps ran west. I lined myself up in my corner position and got a few good exposures.

The only stress I had came from some condensation that formed behind the front lens element on my 400mm f/2.8 lens. Greg offered me a cloth to wipe off the front element but the condensation persisted. When I looked at it in further detail I realized the moisture was between the front lens element and the element immediately behind the front element. That implies moisture has somehow entered the lens and that concerns me. I used an Aqua Tech on Friday during the soaker of a soccer game and everything was dry and protected. Maybe it was the high humidity on Friday and today that caused the condensation to occur.

I noticed that the condensation began to form when the sun came out and it heated up. I read online that condensation tends to form under those circumstances. A few people suggested using that disselent stuff that comes in packages to suck out moisture. They recommended putting your lens in a ziploc bag with one of those things and it'll hopefully suck up the moisture. The concern I have is that if moisture got in once it could get in again.

Hours after the event I examined my lens again and the condensation has evaporated. I'll keep my eye on it and if worst comes to worst I'll have the lens repaired or examined by NPS. Photography is an expensive hobby and business to be in due to the equipment cost!

My photos of the Maryland Terrapins win over the Richmond Spider are up on Flickr. You can also read my article of the Terps 7-0 win over Richmond over on the DC Sports Box.

For my birthday I received a pair of waterproof camping pants for use during inclement weather at outdoor sporting events. Early in the week I headed back to REI and purchased a top to accompany the pants so that I'd have complete coverage during the next outdoor event where rain was expected.

This week it rained on Thursday and Friday. As Friday evening approached I looked towards the radar and noticed that heavy rain was moving in the direction of College Park. I was glad that I picked up the foul weather gear. I also asked Al if I could borrow his Aqua Tech. He gave me the nod and dropped it off at my house Friday afternoon.

It didn't take long before the skies opened up and heavy rain pounded the field. My gear held up well and protected me, and the Aqua Tech rain coat kept my equipment dry and safe. I felt well-prepared having shopped earlier in the week for a top to accompany my water proof bottom.

The game was a big one: No. 1 ranked Wake Forest (and 2007 national champions) faced the No. 2 ranked Terrapins at Ludwig Field. It was nationally televised and a record crowd of 6,500 came out and braved the elements to cheer on the Terps. For once there were actually a few photographers present: James from UPI was there shooting for Greg Fiume, Jackie from the Diamondback was there, and another photographer showed up fully entombed in foul weather gear.

Jackie (and the Diamondback) has been to several games this year and I've bumped into her a few times at other events. She recently switched from Canon to Nikon and leapt from a Rebel XTi to a D300. I asked her what prompted the switch and she said that when using the Diamondback's Nikon equipment her photos came out so much better than on her Canon. It was significant enough to warrant her dropping her own cash on purchasing a D300. For a college student that's no small feat! Since she didn't have any foul weather gear or protective covering for her camera body I loaned her my jacket to use during the first half.

When she headed home at half time I got my jacket back and got a real chance to try it out in the driving rain. My shirt was already soaked at that point but I didn't get any wetter in the second half. The jacket and pants really worked well! It's definitely worth the $100 or so to purchase waterproof pants and a jacket!

The photos came out kinda shaky tonight due to the bad weather. I shot at ISO 5000 and the exposure came out pretty well. At a few different times I got some water on the front element of my 400mm f/2.8 lens. I used a soft paper towel to dry it off but droplets continued to form. I only have a partial lens hood and I suspect that didn't help me during the downpour this evening. If I had a full lens hood it would give me another 4 inches of coverage in front of the front element. Oh well...

It took a little longer to post process my images from the match because I didn't have a chance to delete them on camera during half time. The Aqua Tech doesn't make it easy for you to get your hands in and work a lot of the dials so when I arrived at home I was working through 600 or so exposures. I still managed to get the photos processed and captioned before I headed to bed.

On Saturday morning I put together the article based on the box score posting and my own recollection of the game. You can view my photos of the Maryland Terrapins vs the Wake Forest Demon Deacons over on Flickr. You can also read my article on the Terps vs Wake Forest men's soccer game over on the DC Sports Box website.

The Terps played an unusual mid-week game this afternoon against a school that's no more than a 10 mile drive down the road: American University.

American has a strong field hockey team and the competition today was sharp. The Terps missed some passes in the early going and both teams walked away at half time with a 0-0 tie. In the end it was a goal off a corner by Ellen Ott and a Nicole Muracco baseball hit that gave the Terps the 2 points they needed to outlast the Eagles.

This week has been really hectic for me at work. I have 3 or 4 customers (depending on who you ask) that I work for part time. When their work isn't too chaotic I can usually do an adequate job (again, it depends on who you ask) managing 3 or 4 different sets of expectations. When 1 customer has a critical problem it disrupts the other 2 or 3. Usually they're pretty understanding unless they themselves have critical problems.

This past week or so I've had 3 of my 4 customers experience "critical problems" that for whatever reason required me (and only me) to be there to fix. I'm caught in this pretty bad predicament where they perceive me as critical-path or as a resource they must use in times of chaos. As a result it can make things ... chaotic.

With today's field hockey game I thought to myself: I really should stay here and help these folks with their problems, especially given that I'm heading out of town on Friday and won't be back until Tuesday. But then I thought: I want to shoot a field hockey game.

It was a difficult game to shoot because the Terps shot away from the sun in the first half and didn't put together a lot of offense. In the second half Maryland shot into the sun and at that point Coach Meharg had pumped up the team enough to result in considerably more shots on goal. Most of my action shots that I published this evening came from the second half.

I got some more huddle shots of the team and I got Susie Rowe and Meghan Dean emerging from the huddle and heading out onto the field. The two have very similar physiques and proportions, and their numbers look very similar too: #6 (Rowe) and #8 (Dean). Whenever I caption the two I have a hard time telling the difference between them. Fortunately today Dean wore her hair in a big pony tail while Rowe just wore it back.

Interestingly enough we received a comment on the DC Sports Box page the other day from the parent of Rowe. We (or rather I) had mis-captioned some of the photos and identified the player as Dean rather than Rowe. It was pretty funny because I've been on the other side of the keyboard zooming in at the photo looking for context clues to determine if the player is Rowe or Dean. It's no surprise to me that I got a few of the captions wrong! Fortunately the parent of the player wasn't too upset over my mistake!

Yuchen again agreed to write the article for today's game. I was happy to hear that - he knows so much more about the sport of field hockey than I do, and I have plenty of other work to keep me busy.

My photos from Maryland Field Hockey's win over American University can be found on Flickr.

When I arrived home from football and field hockey on Saturday I took a shower. It was the best shower I've taken in my entire life!

But on Sunday I was back out in the sun for another field hockey game. The matchup between the Maryland Terrapins and the unranked Northwestern Wildcats was expected to be a relatively easy win for the Terps but the Wildcats played a tough game in the early going. I was just happy to be back on the sidelines shooting after being away for several weekends and missing the opening of the field hockey season.

I started sports photography in December 2006 by taking photos of the Maryland Women's Basketball team. When spring arrived I launched into baseball but found my 70-200mm lens to be really insufficient for most shots. As spring progressed I attended some softball games and the 70-200mm lens was perfect size for the infield. I was turned away from men's lacrosse but I did manage to get into a few women's lacrosse games. Again though ... 70-200mm is just too underpowered for that sport.

By the time Fall 2007 rolled around I had become a more serious sports photographer and I had acquired a 400mm f/2.8 lens off SportsShooter.com. Field Hockey was the first sport where I really had a good chance to try it out because I was denied entrance to soccer games and volleyball doesn't need long glass. The field hockey field is really well suited for 400mm glass and likewise the stadium is very accessible and shootable from outside the official fence. As a result it was the first sport I felt like I could attend without being pushed around and take my photos from outside the fence without being hassled.

I got to know the team from a numbers and names standpoint because it was also one of the first teams where I actually captioned my photos individually.

When this year rolled around and I noticed that several games were being played while I was away on vacation in late August early September I was a little bummed. Naturally when I saw 2 open games this weekend I jumped on covering them.

Greg Fiume, the Maryland team photographer, came out for today's event. Yuchen Nie, my coworker from the DC Sports Box, was also there for our group. Another photographer from the Diamondback was present - I've seen her at baseball and soccer games but I've never introduced myself. I had a good time with everyone and got some decent shots. With 10 goals it's pretty hard not to walk away with a bunch of publishable photos!

Yuchen agreed to write the article for today's game and that took a bunch of work off my shoulders. I've been writing and posting photos like crazy and truth be told I'm a pretty lousy writer. I write so that I can shoot, and if someone told me tomorrow I could shoot without writing I would give up the pen in a heartbeat. When I arrived home I post processed my photos in about 45 minutes and had them published and ready to go. It was such a good feeling.

You can view my photos of Maryland's 10-1 win over Northwestern in Field Hockey over on my Flickr page. Or you can read Yuchen Nie's article on the Terps win over the Bears on the DC Sports Box page.

Last year we couldn't get credentials to volleyball or women's soccer. This year we have season credentials to football. Oh how sweet it is...

I could've just shot the football game today between Maryland and Cal but I wanted to give the field hockey team some support and be there for their game. After all, the field hockey team is ranked No. 1 and the Syracuse team is No. 7: somebody has got to cover it...

So once the field hockey game concluded I headed back up to Byrd Stadium to join up with Al for the football game. Al was on the field and his 400mm f/2.8 N series glass wasn't autofocusing properly. He could only apply manual focus. It was good that I was there with my long glass so that I could get some decent shots for us!

I arrived half way through the 2nd quarter and started shooting on the sidelines. It was very exciting - I've been on the field at Byrd stadium dozens of times but never when there are 51,000 people up in the stands, the scoreboard is lit, and the announcer is calling out the plays over the loud speakers. It was definitely an experience I'll never forget.

It was also really hot. It wasn't as bad as our Adidas National Lacrosse Classic event back in July but the combination of high temperature, high humidity, and very little natural breeze made the environment a real challenge. I felt like I started off at a disadvantage having brought 300mm, 400mm, 14-24mm, and 24-70mm glass with me in addition to my D3. I also trucked all that equipment across campus and back. By the time I hit the field I was ready for a serious glass of water!

As usual it took a bit for me to adjust to the game. Watching a sport and photographing a sport are very different activities and it takes some time to fall into your rhythm when you photograph a sport. Field hockey had put me in the mindset for sports photography but I still not experienced any serious football games prior to arriving a Byrd Stadium. As a result it took a bit for me to adjust.

I definitely got a taste for why sports photographers love football. The action is intense and the 400mm lens is perfect for the football field. The 400mm can be a bit too much on smaller fields like lacrosse or field hockey, and it can be too short on larger fields like soccer. But for football that lens is perfect. I used my 300mm a handful of times when the Terps or the Bears were in the redzone. But, truth be told, I don't think I ended up publishing a single 300mm photo. I'm pretty confident that all of my best work from the game came from 400mm.

At halftime I headed up to the top of Tyser Tower where some of the TV crews shoot the game. I wanted to get a really wide shot of the stadium. The clouds were really bright and there was a nice blue sky so I thought the shot would come out well. It did and I was happy I went up high. I actually wish I had a wider ultra-wide lens. The 14mm on an FX sensor looked decent but I really needed 10mm or possibly even 8mm.

After the game I hung out in the press-conference room and cooled off. I didn't have anything to drink during the entire second half and I was really thirsty. Fortunately I know a lot of the secret places at Gossett Field House and was able to find some leftover water bottles from the pre-game tailgate. They were buried beneath a bunch of ice and I snagged about 5 of them. When I got back into the press-conference room I handed a pair to Greg Fiume and Mitch, two photographers I know from Maryland. I downed the remaining 3. Best water evar...

My photos from Maryland's win over the California Bears are located over on Flickr. You can also read my article about the Terps win over the Bears over on the DC Sports Box.

Saturday morning I woke up and packed up my new Think Tank photographers belt and headed over to Byrd Stadium to pick up my photo credential for the football game later in the day. After picking it up I headed down to the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex to take photos of the field hockey team face No. 7 ranked Syracuse.

It was very odd for Maryland to host a field hockey tournament (the Maryland Invitational) on the same weekend as a football game against a top-25 team. None-the-less I headed down to get the coverage while Al hung out at Byrd and focused on the first quarter of football.

I've walked into the field hockey and lacrosse complex dozens of times but this time was different. The smell of grilled hot dogs and hamburgers swirled in the air and the sounds of fans partying before kickoff over in Lot 4 permeated the field hockey stadium. As usual, no other photographers were present.

There was plenty of light for the game but I didn't manage to get very many good shots. Both teams were well matched and the Terps were lethargic at times. They tightened up in the second half and I managed to put together a decent enough photoset but it was a far cry from some of the dominating games the team put together last year. Others in the crowd swear it's untrue but I'm convinced that the partying atmosphere and the smell of tailgating affected their play. Syracuse was good but not great and it seemed like if this had been a regular Saturday or Sunday game Maryland would've blown them out of the water.

It took a lot of work to hike across campus from Byrd Stadium to the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex with all my equipment. All told it's probably 25-35lbs of glass, probably more. And it's awkward too. Navigating through parking lots filled with drunk fans was a challenge.

After the football settled in the parking lots quieted down significantly and the return trip back across campus was a lot easier. It was still and uphill battle (literally) but I didn't have to contend with lots of people walking around in a daze.

Once the field hockey game ended I high-tailed it back to Byrd stadium for the football game. I wanted to miss as little as possible of my first daylight home game in Byrd.

My photos from the Maryland Terrapins vs Syracuse field hockey game are on Flickr. You can also read my article about the Terps vs Syracuse field hockey results over on the DC Sports Box.

On Friday it was my birthday and after a quick nibble at home with Julie I headed out to Ludwig Field to shoot the Terrapins face their first ACC opponent of the season.

The weather was great for the 8pm start and the crowd was of good size. It wasn't a sell out but both sets of seats in the endzone were fully occupied and that always helps to amp up the teams and create better atmosphere. As usual there were very few photographers present: just Jackie from the Diamondback and I were there.

The last men's game I shot at Ludwig turned out pretty well so I decided to again go with ISO 4000. The noise is really quite reasonable on the D3 and having the sensitivity turned up so high allows me to shoot at 1/500th of a second. Going any slower in soccer is pretty risky because you can get a lot of motion blur.

It was surprisingly easy to get into the game tonight. The operations staff moved the media entrance down to the opposite side of the field but once I found it I was able to get through pretty quickly. My name wasn't on the list but Al's name was and the girl working the desk didn't seem to care much.

Your mileage with operations staff really seems to vary. On one hand at Volleyball I was told to go get a wristband or to move aside. But then at soccer, a revenue sport, the operations person practically let me through just based on seeing my camera gear.

I've noticed that most of my soccer photos involve headers. I'm not sure if it's because those are the most common or if it's because those are the shots where you typically only have 2 people in the frame. Soccer is so hard to shoot because there are just so many players on the field that tend to be exactly between you and the ball. Likewise, the players run up and down the sidelines to warm up, a practice that no other sport seems to do. When a play unfolds they tend to stop directly in front of me to watch whats going on. Then you have the off-sides referee who always manages to find a way to park himself directly in front of me. And lastly the ball-boys (or girls): they too find a way to deposit themselves right in my field of view.

When 2 players go up for a header they're up above the rest of the players on the field and most of the sideline crews don't stop what they're doing to watch.

So as I'm going through my photos the ones that tend to come out uninterrupted are the headers. But I don't want to be one-dimensional in what I turn in for my work. It's difficult finding the right balance between quantity, quality, and variation.

When I arrived at home I quickly got through all my photos and wrote up a quick article on the game. It was a brief article because the outcome was 1-0 Terps and there wasn't much to talk about other than how equally well both teams played.

You can go take a look at the Maryland Terrapins vs Boston College men's soccer game photos over on Flickr. Or, you can read about the Terps vs BC on the DC Sports Box.

I kept my wristband on during this afternoon while I worked on my photos from women's soccer along with my article. After warming up some leftovers that Julie and I made while in North Carolina (Baked Ziti) I shuffled back over to Ludwig to take some photos of the men's soccer match against Davidson.

The Terps are ranked this year and the men's soccer games draw a pretty decent crowd. I think that we (Dave Lovell and myself) are on the season credential list for men's soccer but since I still had on my wristband from earlier I was able to walk in without checking with the media folks first.

I wanted to get a few shots during the golden hour but unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate. Even though it was sunny all day and was getting nice and golden 15 minutes before game time the sun dropped below some clouds far off in the west and left us with ordinary well diffused light.

Oh well...

Since I didn't have a chance to get my golden shots I decided to experiment some more with shooting from the endzone again. It worked pretty well. I was able to get some shots of some attacks that I normally wouldn't have been able to capture while on the sideline.

About half way through the first 45 minutes I bumped into Dave Lovell. He was all decked out in his Think Tank gear along with his 2 bodies. We talked about football coverage next weekend and I said I didn't know what Al's plan was beyond Anthony Amobi being the DC Sports Box writer.

It was nice not having to write an article for the men's soccer game. I was able to just sit back and post process my photos and get a jump start on putting out my blog posts before cleaning up my hard drive. This week should also be a good one. With no games I should have time to finally get Shock in order and upgraded to use Maven. I also have fixed a few bugs in it that were really bothering me but I haven't been able to push out a new version until the Maven upgrade is complete.

I've also been thinking a lot more about putting together some kind of scrappy assignment desk. Our process for editing articles right now is entirely email based and as a result it's very sloppy. Some software would help us standardize and improve the workflow and it wouldn't be too difficult to write. I just need to find the time to do it...

I talked with Dave during Volleyball and we decided to split the soccer games on Sunday between each other to distribute the work load. I picked the 1pm women's soccer game while Dave took the 7pm men's soccer contest.

The sun was at a great angle for shots favoring the Terps in the first half. This was good news since Maryland was on the attack for the better part of the opening 45 minutes. I started out on the sideline but then moved up into the stands in the "endzone" part of the field so I could get some better light. When standing in the endzone the sun was at about a 30 degree angle behind me, but when I stood on the sideline I was working with a 60 degree angle for the sun's location. This created a lot of shadows and hard light on the players as they marched up the field.

I usually don't go into the endzone at Ludwig Field because it requires me to go up into the stands. When I enter the stands my perspective suffers because I have a lot of field in the background rather than stands that are really far away on the opposite side of the pitch. The field is within a reasonable depth of field so as a result my subjects aren't as isolated as they would be had I shot from down low.

On the other hand I get a much better perspective on the players as they race up the sidelines of the field. Being higher up also helps in focus because I'm shooting less through people and more above people. I noticed that I'm able to capture considerably more shots being up high, but the quality of the shots is less.

It was pretty sunny and I wore my photography hat while shooting today. Another photographer from the Diamondback was in attendance and she didn't seem to have on much sun protection at all. She wore jeans which must've been sweltering, but no hat or anything else. I got a little bit of a sunburn on my right forearm but overall I came out unscathed.

My "AARP" chair (as Dave Lovell calls it) worked well for me. I used to wear knee pads last season. In the summer sun you quickly sweat up the insides of the pads and I found myself slipping around in them a lot. A chair, while certainly less cool than knee pads, works great.

As usual there were no press or other photographers other than myself and the Diamondback reporter. Hopefully that'll change in the future but for now it seems as though we're the only outlet regularly reporting on the Terrapin Olympic sports.

My article on Maryland's win over the Temple Owls is posted up on the DC Sports Box website. You can also view my gallery of the Terps over the Temple Owls over on Flickr.

Thanks to Tropical Storm Hanna my wife Julie and I cut short our vacation by a day to head back to DC. Arriving home a day early gave me the chance to take a look at the Maryland schedule and figure out what games I'd like to attend.

The first on the chopping block was women's volleyball.

The volleyball team and the wrestling team both play in Comcast Pavilion. There are about a dozen challenges associated with Comcast Pavilion but the biggest problem I've faced is the lighting. It's really difficult to work with.

Volleyball is a sport where the player moves extremely fast to spike the ball. You have to use 1/500th of a second for shutter speed and even then you'll get some motion blur. With the lighting in the Pavilion I have to shoot at ISO 4000 using an f/2.8 lens if I'm going to get anything decent to work with. Dave suggested an 85/1.4 and I think that'd work pretty well in there.

The bigger issue is that the bulbs are inconsistent. Some are blue, some are white, and some are orange. Given that they don't shine uniformly bright it makes exposure and white balance a real challenge. They also are the types of lights that slowly bleed off light as they cycle every 1/60th of a second. As the bulb distributes light over time the color of the light changes. If we shot slower than 1/60th of a second we'd get all the shades of light and you could set some WB adjustment to get some sort of a better color. But since we're up at 1/500th of a second or faster we only get 1 sliver of the different colors that are thrown off by the bulbs.

Every photo I kept I ended up adjusting the tint and WB on. It slows you down and it makes post processing really difficult because you're trying to avoid making the players jerseys appear blue while also avoiding making their skin tones appear yellow or orange.

I bumped into Dave Lovell at the game and he was working with a 300mm lens in addition to a 70-200 on a D300. I stuck with my 70-200mm on my D3 with ISO 4000 for most of the match and was very happy with how it performed. The shots came out a lot better than my shots last year on my D200. Of course last year I was working with ISO 2000 as the highest ISO I realistically wanted to use so I'd dip down into the 1/250th of a second shutter speeds to get some exposure.

I also bumped into Joey Flyntz. I've met him a few times at Maryland but can't recall the specific sports. I had to ask for a media bracelet since one of the operations people gave me a hard time about being on the sideline. He kinda laughed because very few people request credentials for volleyball and he had a difficult time locating a bracelet to give me.

Please go take a look at the article I wrote about Maryland Volleyball's loss to Kentucky on the DC Sports Box. I also have a photo gallery posted of the Maryland vs Kentucky volleyball match over on Flickr.