One Game at a Time

We were fortunate to receive credentials for the Final Four in the 2007 NCAA Field Hockey Tournament, and I was very happy to attend and report on the success of the various teams. North Carolina played very well and soundly defeated Penn State 3-0 to claim their 5th national championship. Rachel Dawson played very well, as did Jesse Gey. You can read all about the game, and view my photos, over on the DC Sports Box.

After UNC defeated the Huskies there was a brief period of time before the Penn State Nittany Lions took on the Wake Forest Demon Decons in the first round of the 2007 NCAA Tournament for Field Hockey. I spent the time working through my photos and writing my article, and by the time the second game started I was in good shape. You can read all about how Penn State shut down the Decons 2-0, and view my photos, over on the DC Sports Box.

The DC Sports Box obtained media credentials to cover the 2007 Field Hockey NCAA Tournament held in College Park MD. The first game I reported on involved the North Carolina Tar Heels and the UConn Huskies. It was a night game and I used ISO1600 for my shots. I've become numb to the noise at ISO1600. In the past I used to try to get away with ISO1250 and slower shutter speeds, but now I'm ok with ISO1600. My article for the DC Sports Box, along with a photo gallery, is posted here. Please go take a look!

On Saturday afternoon the Terps soundly defeated Old Dominion by a score of 5-0. You can read my article about it on the DC Sports Box site over here. On Sunday afternoon they played the Penn State Nittany Lions. Al managed to get credentials for the game and I covered the game. You can read my writeup of the Penn State vs Maryland Terrapins 2007 NCAA Tournament game here.

Unfortunately Penn State was too much for the Terps. The Nittany Lions defense was just too strong and the Terps struggled to get very many shots. Muracco and Katie O'Donnell played well, but they couldn't connect with the back of the net.

The shoot was a lot of fun because it was outdoors in the afternoon in full sun. The temperature was comfortable in comparison to other night time games the Terps have had and I was quite comfortable with a winter coat and a hat.

As usual there were very few photographers present. Yuchen and Greg were there, as was another photographer from a Field Hockey reporting website that I can't recall off the top of my head. No videographers, and no photographers from Penn State. There were some pen and paper reporters present, including a writer from the Diamondback.

It was difficult to capture some good shots of the Terps because the Penn State defense was so strong. None the less, when Maryland did go on the attack I tried my best to capture the moment. I shot 1/3200 or better on ISO 200 for the entire game (at f2.8) except for when the Terps were in the shade. I then had to dial down the shutter speed to 1/500 or thereabouts.

Fortunately I didn't have to go any slower than 1/500th. You can go down to 1/400th in field hockey, but at that point you're starting to risk some motion blur. If you're lucky you can get away with 1/320th, but most of the time you'll get motion blur.

At those speeds you also start getting into focus trouble. I've noticed that I have more difficulties properly focusing while my subjects are in the shade vs in the full sun.

I've been covering a lot of games lately, and as a result I've been forced to speed up my post processing. In many media organizations there's a writer and a photographer who do arguably completely different jobs when reporting. But in a scrappy young organization like the DC Sports Box we have to do everything we can with the limited resources we have. That means that reporters might have to shoot, and more often than not photographers have to write.

I've enjoyed writing, and I've blogged about how you get to know the teams better. It's definitely true that researching the team and writing about them gives you a lot more understanding about the chemistry at work on the field. It also helps you with your shooting. As you write you're forced to report statistics on individual players. The background research into player stats helps you on the field when you raise the glass to your eye and release the shutter.

If you know that O'Donnell is closing in on some particular scoring record, or coach Meharg is about to surpass some coaching record with the next goal, you can anticipate the moment and position yourself to capture it. I've blogged in the past about how so much of sports photography involves anticipating the next action, and I've found that writing has helped me to do that.

Unfortunately the Terps lost this afternoon, and that means that my research on the Maryland Field Hockey team will draw to a close this weekend rather than continue on to the 2007 NCAA Final Four next weekend. They've had a remarkable season but I'm sure they are disappointed with their post-season performance. They were shut down in the ACC Tournament and their effort against Penn State this afternoon could have been better.

I'm sad that the Field Hockey team is hanging up their sticks for the long winter because it's been one of my favorite sports to shoot. I've had a great time reporting on the 2007 Maryland Field Hockey team, and I'm looking forward to next Spring's practices and the games next Fall. The field is sufficiently small for a 400mm lens, and the action is good.

They also play a lot of daytime games in comparison with the soccer team. I think the Maryland men's soccer team played 1 day game this year, and the rest were all at night. One was at dusk and there was about 20 minutes of shots you could get with decent exposure before you had to crank up the ISO and go to a 70-200mm lens.

The field hockey players also celebrate a lot when they score. I suppose that's true in any low-scoring game (like soccer), but I've noticed that this team has some great moments.

It was truly a pleasure to attend 8 or 9 games this fall for the field hockey team and report on their success this season. I enjoyed my travel to North Carolina to report on their play against the #1 UNC Tar Heels (even though they were held shotless), and I think my skill as a sports photographer has improved. I definitely know that my writing has improved since covering them.

When I awoke this morning the streets were moist and wet leaves littered the lawn. There was a light fog around, and the clouds were thick. I wondered how the field hockey games would go today...

By mid-morning the clouds started to clear and every now and then a ray of sunlight appeared in my backyard. I was happy to see that. Shooting outdoor sports in full sun is a lot of fun. By the time game time came around (11am) there were high clouds and plenty of sunlight.

I headed over to the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex near the Comcast Center at Maryland and took my backpack and photo suitcase out of the trunk. Today was the opening round of the 2007 Field Hockey NCAA Tournament, and the University of Maryland was fortunate enough to host the event.

The Terps were set to play Old Dominion, a team they played twice earlier in the season and beaten 4-1. I looked forward to this game because it promised to have a lot of offense and a lot of sunlight. A perfect combination... You can read my DCSB article here.

The person working the media desk had my pass and I happily attached it to my belt. This was my first time at the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex with an official pass. I shot 8 or 9 home games this season, but none of them were as a credentialed reporter.

It was a brisk day. A cold front came through the region the night before and brought with it some cold Canadian air and a lot of wind. The media tent was an island of heat and it was so cozy inside. The Maryland folks set up tables with food and plenty of chairs. I left my laptop in my backpack and instead focused on assembling my camera.

Yuchen was there and he was eating some food from Maryland. I also noticed that Greg was out on the field taking some photos. I chatted briefly with Yuchen while we both assembled our equipment.

I debated wearing a jacket out to the field but decided to go with it in the end. The media tent was so warm and I was practically sweating in there while assembling. It was pretty brisk outside though and I didn't want to catch a cold.

When I got out there I chatted with Greg, who had on a stocking cap, gloves, and a winter coat. Greg is a few years my senior, and Yuchen is a few years younger than me. The three of us remarked about how chilly it had become overnight. Yuchen was wearing a t-shirt and some exercise shorts over some leggings. Both Greg and I had on our winter coats, gloves, and hats.

I jokingly said: "ya you'll be picking up a Z-Pak on Monday." Yuchen had no idea what I was talking about, but Greg got the joke. Z-Paks contain some powerful antibiotics that can counteract the effects of an infection. They work really well but you typically only get one when you're really sick.

I guess I'm getting old because I'm at a point where I care more about NOT getting sick then I do about my personal comfort on the field. If I have to wear a scarf, 2 hats, sweatpants and jeans over them, 3 tshirts, 1 sweater, 1 hooded sweater, and a double layer Gortex jacket to stay warm and avoid getting sick I'm going to do it! I think Greg feels the same way...

The lighting during the shoot was difficult to work with at times. There are tall oak trees that line the sideline, and the sun was just slightly behind the trees. And the trees dropped some leaves the night before.

In the middle of the field the lighting was strong enough for 1/6400th shutter, ISO 200, and f2.8. But in the shade I struggled to hit 1/500th shutter. I didn't want to go to aperture priority mode because I haven't had much success with the camera's built in meter when shooting high action sports.

I just memorized that it was N clicks to go from 1/500th to 1/6400th and watched through the viewfinder as my subjects transitioned from partial shade to full sun. Of course mother nature threw a monkey wrench in the plan by providing some high puffy clouds. As a result I would often have players at midfield while I was on 1/6400th and then a cloud would pop over. When that happened I'd knock it back down to 1/500th to correct.

It was difficult but I managed to get some decent shots. I need to do some research to figure out if there's something I can do on my camera to help me with situations like this. I wonder if that's what the "shooting banks" are used for. I know you can adjust the AF system in various banks, and I wonder if I can actually apply exposure presets in there as well. If that's the case then it might not be too bad to set up some presets before a shoot.

I shot the game using my Nikon 400/2.8 AF-S lens on my D200 and my Nikon 70-200/2.8 AF-S II VR lens on Al's D200. The results were interesting. Al's color saturation was completely different than mine even though I applied the same image optimizations. I swear there are differences between his camera and mine that I don't understand. The basketball pictures from earlier in the week are evidence of the difference.

After the Terps won I started post processing my pictures in the media tent. It was a lot of fun post processing there on site because there were a lot of people from Maryland and from the NCAA milling about. Whenever someone is looking at pictures it attracts a crowd, and a lot of people were looking at my photos.

It was a little awkward though because every photographer knows that in sports you shoot a ton of throw-away footage. This material is often extremely unflattering. It either shows the subject in an inappropriate position, or it illustrates some undesirable aspect of the player.

A very common example of this in women's players is the appearance of what appears to be cellulite. This occurs when a player makes a sudden stop and all the muscle from their thigh moves forward to the front of their leg. Lots of times you'll get wrinkles in the front of their leg that look like cellulite. It's not, and you just have to delete those photos.

It's a shame because I've taken some great shots that I've had to throw away because my subject has the false-cellulite or some other unnatural thing happening to them at the time of exposure.

Other times you capture a player while their tongue is hanging out of their mouth, or while their eyes are closed. Or you may get them bending over in a way that is inappropriate to photograph.

As sports photographers we realize that this is simply part of the business, and you just delete those bad shots and move on. But to the untrained eye it's quite suspicious. One of the referee's remarked: "oh she's not going to like that picture!" She didn't realize that before she finished making that statement I had already deleted that photo (and the 2 photos I shot immediately after).

Non-the-less... It was good having some people around over my shoulder while I was going through my shots. I wrapped things up about 30 minutes later and got my shots down to 25 that I wanted to publish. When I was finished the same referee came up to me and asked if I had any pictures of her. I was working on my camera equipment and so I allowed her to look at the photos in Aperture. She went through them all and said: "wow these are really good!"

So there's a small glimpse into the post-processing life of a sports photographer. You have to be careful about what you shoot, and you have to be aware that people who don't shoot sports don't understand your process. If all they see is the raw material before the final polished product is published they may have some false ideas of what you're doing.

Fortunately the referees that were present immediately after the game stuck around awhile and saw my final product and were happy with it. If they didn't stick around they might walk away with some false impressions!

After the Maryland field hockey team won there was about an hour and a half period if inactivity before the next game started. This gave the officials time to water down the field, and it gave me time to post-process my pictures and work on my article.

I debated going home, but packing everything up just to go home and then come back in an hour seemed impractical. Instead I stayed in the media tent and worked on my post-processing. Coach Missy Meharg did a post-game press conference in the field hockey complex, and there were 2 other reporters present.

One guy was from the Diamondback and the other gentleman was from the Terrapin Times. Both had microphones and asked several questions. Coach Meharg looked over towards me at the end and asked if I had any questions. I didn't... I don't have any intelligent comments to make or questions to ask so I just thanked her for her time and wished her good luck in the off season.

I mostly attend the post-game press conferences to grab sound bites and to post-process my pictures. I'm currently a writer out-of-necessity rather than desire, meaning that I write in order to get my photos published. If another writer was present to cover a game they would do a 1000x better job than me. There's a skill to writing that takes years to develop, and I'm pretty darn sure I ain't got it!

On the other hand, writing has grown on me since I started working with Al at the DC Sports Box. Originally I despised it, and I believe asking Al to only send me to events where a writer was present. It seems kind of unlikely that I would make a request like that, but it was definitely my disposition.

As I'm shooting more I'm finding that the writing gets you in touch with the team. Captioning was my first entry into the writing world, and it came as a natural extension of shooting. In order to caption you have to know the players and their story. Captioning a photo with: "#22 Sarah Scholl scores her 4th penalty corner in 5 games" is much more compelling and interesting than "#22 Sarah Scholl waits for the inbound pass on a penalty corner."

In order to caption you have to learn the team, and the story behind the players. It's actually pretty interesting to learn those things, and once you know them you can talk about them in your articles. I now understand why reporters have "beats" rather than being floated around to random teams: they get to know their teams! It all seems so intuitive on the surface, but when you actually experience the connection to a team while taking photos, captioning, or writing it's actually quite exhilarating and unexpected.

So I stuck around after the Maryland press conference and shot the PSU vs Virginia game. While I was shooting it Coach Meharg scouted the teams. Tomorrow she'll play the winner of this match up, and when that happens I'm sure she'll want to know as much as she can about the opposing team.

It was fun shooting while Coach Meharg and her staff were on the sidelines. They are understandably busy coaching during the game, but during this particular match they were talking and remarking on the play of the two teams. It was enjoyable from an out-of-the-norm perspective, but it was also fun to hear her comments on the other teams. It was educational to hear what she observed while watching the teams.

I didn't write an article for the DC Sports Box, and I only stuck around for the first half. During the second half I went heads down in the press conference room to kick out my Maryland Field Hockey article and post it online. I also wrapped up my post processing for the game photos. I wanted to get those wrapped up and published early because after the 2nd field hockey game I wanted to head home and prepare for Football.

During the Virginia vs PSU game I chatted briefly with Sandy from the coaching staff. She's an athletic trainer who has been with Maryland for as long as I can remember. She's a very personable coach and she often takes photos on the sidelines of the team. She asked if I was attending tomorrow's game and I said I was. I also shared with her the photos I took during the Maryland game.

It was unusual taking photos of two non-Maryland teams playing on a Maryland field. I guess I'll have to get used to that though if the DC Sports Box gets credentials to the NCAA Championships next weekend and Maryland is out of contention.

It rained non-stop for about 2 days in College Park leading up to Friday night's game. As I watched the radar loop during the day I had little hopes for a dry game this evening. Sure enough it was a downpour...

With about an hour and a half to game time I decided to start working on my rain gear. Earlier in the day I stopped off at Penn Camera and looked at some Aqua Tech gear. It cost about $300 to purchase something that would cover my 400mm/2.8 lens. Although I spent $4500 on the lens I didn't know if I wanted to drop $300 on a rain proof bag.

In the 90 or so games I've covered since I started doing sports photography I've only had 2 occasions where there was precipitation. That means that I would use the bag roughly 2% of the time. If I had endless resources I would definitely purchase the Aqua Tech wrapper - it's a fine piece of equipment. But I have a hard time justifying the cost for something I'll use less than 2% of the time.

I've also spent a lot of money on my gear, and Julie has been extremely supportive of my venture. I keep thinking in the back of my mind that this could turn out to be revenue generating at some point, but for now I've only earned $280 for shooting for the Bowie Blade. It makes it all that much more difficult when purchasing things... I have to be very thorough in thinking about: will I actually use this piece of equipment.

Fortunately I use everything I've purchased on a weekly basis. My D200 and 400mm/2.8 is my workhorse, backed up by my 70-200/2.8 VR lens. If I'm attending an outdoor game there's a 100% chance I'm going to use those lenses and body. I use my D2H less, but I find that the second body is an absolute must in certain situations.

In field sports you'll go long with one body for 75% of your shots because most of the field is outside the range of a 200mm lens. But, you'll need to get those close-up shots of the goalie, the corner kicker, the inbounder, and for those you'll need something short. As a result you want that second body. Although most of the shots I publish during the game come off my 400mm lens, a high ratio of my "best" shots come off the 70-200 while a player is on the near side of the field.

So with the rain beating down all day I thought about how I would protect my equipment. I decided to go with garbage bags and some rubber bands. As I worked with the lens on the floor of my office at Ft Meade I thought about how I would handle the rotational aspects of shooting. I couldn't simply put 1 garbage bag around the lens and the monopod support. That would prevent me from rotating and going vertical or horizontal.

I decided to cut a thin ring of plastic from a garbage bag and rubber band it to the front area of the lens. I then cut a wider ring of plastic from the bag and placed it behind the monopod mount. I again used rubber bands to secure it.

It worked pretty well but that left a large area of the lens exposed. The area where the monopod support rotated around the lens was left open. To fix that I used one large garbage bag with a hole cut in the front. I attached it to the front of the lens and I left it pretty saggy as it went over the monopod ring. I then attached it to the back of the lens near the body.

That allowed me to keep a seal around the entire lens but still have some rotational freedom. I was also secure thinking that I had a second layer of protection under the outer bag. Lastly I brought a bathroom towel with me to place over the entire assembly. It took about 45 minutes to assemble from start to finish, but I think I could do it again in 20 minutes now that I have come up with a design that works reasonably well.

I arrived at the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex in College Park with about a minute to spare before faceoff. It was pouring when I arrived and the air had a sharp chill. It was clear that the warm summer days were long past, and cooler November weekends were ahead.

With my D200 wrapped in trash bags, my bathroom towel, and a hooded sweatshirt I emerged from my car and approached the arena. There were some faithful fans present with raincoats and umbrellas. Many people had on hats and gloves to keep the chill away from them.

I walked in, and as usual nobody gave me any trouble. I took note of which side the Terps were shooting against and made my way to the far side of the field. As I walked through the stands I noticed Yuchen was present. He was sitting on the field with his 400mm Canon lens. Like me he had selected garbage bags to use, but he went for the duct tape as a sealer rather than rubber bands.

I moved over towards my regular position (near the visitng team bench) and set up shop. On my walk I was very careful to keep the front element of my lens facing downwards. Normally when you carry a 400mm the front element faces up just a little bit but with the rain coming down so hard I wanted to make sure I didn't get any splotches.

No CSC people were out tonight to keep the fans in-check. There were barely any fans there at all. The few that id brave the elements for tonights game were cuddled along the sidelines with their umbrellas to protect them.

It was a shame because tonight was senior night and this is an incredible hockey team. The Terps managed to put together back to back national championships and only lost 1 game this season (to #1 ranked UNC). It's a shame that they didn't have better weather to celebrate their remarkable achievement.

I started shooting and about 15 minutes into the first half I ran out of space on my 4GB card. I thought that was strange because I had only shot a few hundred images. I then recalled that earlier in the day I was experimenting with "raw" mode and I had neglected to adjust my image quality setting.

Normally when I go to a shoot there are 2 high-level settings I check: white balance and ISO. I never check the image quality because I never adjust it. So I burned up my 4GB card shooting just a few hundred shots in the first 15 minutes of the game.

Fortunately Yuchen was there and Canons use CF cards as well. Rather than walking back out to the car to get more media I was able to borrow a 1GB card from Yuchen. Normally I carry my media with me in a Think Tank media wallet, but I didn't do that tonight because of the foul weather. I didn't want to get soaked and have that soak get into the cards in my wallet.

I made my adjustment and kept on shooting.

I had a blast shooting in the rain and it was a lot of fun chatting with Yuchen on the sidelines while dripping wet. He's a college student that shoots for the DiamondBack but you can tell that he has a lot of passion for shooting sports. Overall I've seen him more than any other photographer, even for "no-name" games. I respect that tremendously.

During the second half we both shot from on the field and I got some great shots. I tried to focus on Janneke van Leeuwen because it's her senior night and she's the team captain. I managed to get a few of her, and on my DC Sports Box article I featured her for my photo even thought it wasn't the best of the evening.

I got some great photos of Coach Missy Meharg. She was dressed in her black Under Armour jacket that featured a bold red Terps logo followed by "HOCKEY" in white. She was also wearing a grey Under Armour hat and she was completely drenched. The rain on her jacket, as well as the soaked hat, really made for a great shot.

This is the final home game I'll be covering for the Field Hockey team during the regular season. The NCAA semifinal and final game will be held at College Park and with any luck I'll be covering that for the DC Sports Box. Hopefully I'll be focusing my lens on the Terrapins and I'll be reporting on a 3rd national championship for them!

Yuchen put the idea in my head to cover the #1 UNC Tar Heels vs the #2 Maryland Terrapins in Field Hockey down in Chapel Hill NC. After Julie gave the nod I made preparations to attend.

I contacted a coworker I'm friends with at Zenoss who lives in the Raleigh-Durham area and he offered me a place to stay for the evening on Friday night. I also had Al contact the associate athletic director for communication at UNC and request the credential. Dana responded very promptly and positively: Come on down!

I pulled up Google maps and plotted my way from College Park to Chapel Hill NC. Google said it was about 300 miles and would take me 6 hours. I checked in with Mark in Durham and he confirmed the route. I decided to leave early on Friday afternoon to avoid traffic.

The drive down to Chapel Hill was great: mixed clouds and sun and the terperature was in the middle to upper 70s. The leaves were turning orange and red for the Fall season, and there was very little traffic. I drove through Port Royal and through Bowling Green and there were very few cars on the road.

With satellite radio the drive goes quickly. And I was very excited to cover the field hockey game on the road.

When I arrived in Durham I went to dinner with Mark. We split some chicken wings and burgers at a local watering hole. Since Wake Forest, Duke, UNC, and NC State are all without about 20 miles of each other most restaurants and bars down there are mixed-use: there is memorabilia from all 4 schools up all over the place. There were also jerseys and photos of the Carolina Hurricanes and Panthers. My skin was crawlin being in a place like that!

Fortunately I didn't wear my Maryland colors on the way down. I think I would've been run out of the restaurant if I had worn them!

I headed over to Chapel Hill in the morning and drove around campus looking for the field hockey arena. Fortunately the people in North Carolina are very nice and very helpful. I located the facility without any problem and was about 90 minutes early. The water was running, and I was surprised by that given the drought conditions.

After parking I pulled out my bag, knee pads, and hat and headed over to Francis E Henry arena. I met up with Dana in the media office on the 3rd floor of the stadium and introduced myself. I asked her what kinds of rules they have for where photographers can and can't go.

She told me to basically stay behind the nets and to stay out of the way from the team benches. It was pretty laid back. I asked if I could go out onto the field during introduction and she said I could not. That was ok though because of the way that the sun was positioned in the sky.

The flag was on one side of the field and the sun was on the other. That meant that the teams would be backlit while looking at the flag. That would blow out the shot so it didn't bother me that I couldn't get it.

Dana left to go attend to other duties and I was left to get my gear set up. I was happy to find the "Tar Heels" network was wide open and got me out to the Internet. At Maryland the WiFi is protected and a pain.

I chatted with some of the video people and found out from them where the visiting team bus typically arrives. I then put my 17-55/2.8 DX lens on my D200 and attached my SB-800. I headed downstairs to take some test shots of a fence.

I don't know very much at all about flash photography, but I have a great appreciation for it's complexity and for it's power. I purchased Nikon's "Introduction to Creative Lighting" and have read it over 3 times. I still only understand about 25% of the material, but I'm learning...

I read about guide numbers, and the general rule of thumb regarding dividing by 10. It says that if the guide number is 110 you should use f11 at 10 feet away. Adjusting the guide number increases (or decreases) the flash output.

I wanted to take some test shots with different GN settings. When I shot my nephew and niece I didn't make any adjustments and some of the shots were way too bright. With the team coming off the bus I wanted to make sure I got the settings right so I decided to test.

When the team stepped off the bus I was ready. I got some great shots of a few players. Unfortunately most of the players were looking down at the ground as they stepped out so I didn't take very many shots. But, for the players and coaching staff that looked upwards I grabbed a shot.

When Coach Meharg stepped off she came up and shook my hand and thanked me for traveling to cover the game. I was excited and happy to do it. I hope that Maryland reconsiders giving us a media credential.

As the players headed for the locker room to prepare I returned to the media room to switch lenses. I met up with Yuchen and we exchanged some travel stories while we set up our gear. With 60 minutes to go before face-off there was a lot of time to kill. It was a nice day though, and so I made the best of it by enjoying some cheese nachos and some bottled water. There wasn't much food selection at the stadium!

I regretted not taking the time to meet up with Al to pick up his belt. I wanted to carry my 17-55/2.8 DX lens with me while I had my 70-200/2.8 and 400mm on my 2 bodies. But since I didn't have a belt I had to put the 17-55/2.8 DX lens in my pocket. I had cargo shorts on, but it's still a big lens. And from time to time you have to move quickly along the sidelines to get a particular shot. I didn't look forward to carrying this expensive lens in my pocket during the match.

But I was glad I took it with me because I was in a great position when the team moved out onto the field. Fortunately they stayed close to the bench and that meant I could stay behind the net and still get my shots of them in a huddle. The lighting was off, and if I could move onto the field I would've gotten a great shot. But I didn't want to push my luck so I stayed off the field as I was instructed.


When the game began the Terps were shooting with the sun on their back as they came up the field. That's a really difficult lighting situation because even under open sun you still have to open the aperture up to f2.8 and slow the shutter down to 1/800th in order to expose the players faces. And when you do that you often overexpose other areas of the image.

You also tend to get halos that form around the players. This is especially prevalent in female athletes or men that have long hair. The backlight gets into their hair and bounces all around in it. You end up with these photos where there's a ton of light in their hair and their faces are rather dark. Unfortunately I don't know what you can do about it...

The Terps didn't take any shots during the game and so they spent very little time on the offensive side of the field. With about 20 minutes left in the half I moved down to cover the Terps defense.

This was a good move because the Terps ended up playing 90% of the entire game on the defensive side of the field. I ended up in the corner and got some well lit shots while covering the Terps defending against Carolina. I didn't get any celebration photos (because there were no points to be had by Maryland), but I did get my share of action shots.

At half time the Terps hadn't managed to take a single shot or receive a penalty corner. Carolina had something like 11 shots at that point and 3 or 4 corners. I was hoping that the Terps would come out from halftime regrouped and ready to play. And I was looking forward to it because they'd be shooting into the sun.

Unfortunately they were pretty flat coming into the 2nd half and spent most of their time on the defensive side of the field. I readjusted my position and moved from the endzone corner that Maryland shot against to about 1/3 of the way into the offensive zone on the sideline.

The 400mm is plenty powerful for field hockey and I didn't want to get too close to the action. If Maryland did manage to score I wanted a chance at some decent light, but at the same time I realized their hopes were fading fast. When Carolina scored their first goal with about 11 minutes to play I realized the game was pretty much in the bag. The Terps still hadn't managed to take a shot or force a corner. It didn't look likely that they would rally from a deficit...

Carolina then scored 2 additional goals to make it 3-0 with 2 minutes to play and the game was finished. I geared up in anticipation of the players coming off the field. I hoped to get some good shots of them with the 17-55/2.8 lens but they looked pretty sad after the game. I understand it though - they faced off against the #1 team in the country and they didn't play particularly well. As a result I threw away most of those shots.

You can read my full writeup of the game here.

I packed up my gear and headed north to College Park. I wish I was racing home to photograph the football game between the Terps and the Cavaliers. But I think we're a ways off from being able to cover a game like that.

I made it home in time for the game and watched it from the comfort of my living room on HD while enjoying some beer and reviewing my field hockey photographs. I would have preferred to have been there in person, on the field, capturing the moment. But being at home with my wife, some beer, and my photographs is equally enjoyable.