One Game at a Time

The sun was much more favorable for this afternoon's practice. There were some storm clouds afoot but the weather wasn't overcast like yesterday. A lot of photographers like overcast because it diffuses the sunlight but I prefer the direct sun. I would rather try to work with it than against it and hope for an overcast sky.

I skipped lunch today and showed up at the practice field hungry and thirsty. Fortunately I had time to head home and change into shorts before the photo-shoot. I'm really happy I spent my 20 minute lunch break at home changing rather than showing up to the artificial turf in jeans and an office shirt - it was crazy hot today!

The usual crew of reporters were present today: a guy from the Washington Times (I don't know his name), Seth (from Inside Maryland Sports), Fabian (from MGN), Mark Clem (from Terrapin Times), and Keith (from Terrapin Times). We all chatted briefly outside the gate before practice began and we were permitted access to the artificial turf.

During our pre-practice chatter we remarked on the 2003 Hurricane Isabel practices. Mark Clem remarked on how the practice schedule was shifted around to accomodate the inclement weather and how a 4pm practice had been bumped up to 6am so the team could get in their drills before the bad weather arrived. The support staff for the football team arrived at 5am to prepare everything. When the players arrived at 6am the support staff amped the regular practice music over the public address system. Mark said that 10 UMPD cars arrived within a few minutes... I lol'ed.

He said the police told the support staff they had to turn the music down because it was a nuisance to all the students in the dorms across the road. The athletic support staff, with the fear of Coach Friedgen in them, refused and told the police they'd have to take the issue up with the coaching staff.

I thought that was hilarious.

I remember Hurricane Isabel (albeit not from a photographic or athletic standpoint - I was interested in the depression from a meteorological standpoint) so this was pretty funny to me.

For today's practice I decided to open to f/2.8 to see how things went. I'm sold on it. My shots came out sharp from Lightroom's post processing. I'll reconsider this during indoor sports (e.g basketball, wrestling, and volleyball). However, for now I'm sold on f/2.8 on outdoor sports.

It's mid-week and I've shot more these past few days and I've shot over the past month. Sports are on the brink of returning and I can't wait.

In addition to football kicking into full-speed the Maryland Field Hockey team is standing up and will play it's first exhibition game this weekend. Unfortunately it's up in Boston so I won't be able to attend. We're trying to schedule a shoot with a few players and I have some ideas of some poses I'd like to set up.

The light was software this afternoon from some clouds low in the sky. There was also some drizzle towards the end of our 25 minute viewing and that made for some interesting shots. That reminds me that I should probably order my Aqua Tech soon in anticipation of the Fall sports and the inevitable rain storms I'll be out at on a cold Thursday evening.

I've been shooting through the long glass for the past 2 practices: 400mm. I've stuck at f/4 but I think tomorrow I'm going to open up to f/2.8 just to see if it makes any noticeable difference in the sharpness of my shots.

I also changed some of my publishing procedures and they have become significantly easier. I'm pushing directly out of Lightroom and up to Flickr. I can post a link to a slideshow from Flickr up on our website. This works a LOT easier than firing up my own custom-developed software. A LOT easier! I'm very excited...

Practice Day 2 came around quickly and a 4:25pm start time gave me some great light to work with. The lower the light in the day the more pleasant it is to play with. You can get completely different feels from your subjects when you shoot them with light from different angles. For instance, you can go for a really traditional shot where the light is over your shoulder and the subject is looking directly in your direction. Or you can flip it 180 degrees and shoot directly into to sun and rim the player with light.

Both are great and all the angles in between create interesting effects as well. I like working when the light is low in the sky because there are so many options you can explore as a photographer.

Like yesterday we were limited to 25 minutes of shooting and observing so I had to move quickly to get as many shots as possible. I timed the practice perfectly and walked in just as they began their first set of drills.

After heading home, showering, cooling off, downing some Tylenol, and offloading my posed and candid shots from the Media Day event I headed back to campus for a 7pm practice. The start time was pushed back due to the oppressive heat and I was quite happy to shift my afternoon activities around so I could hit football at 7pm rather than 4pm.

Practice was enjoyable to shoot because I hadn't seen the team in action since the April 18th scrimmage. We were only permitted to shoot and observe the opening 5 periods, each of which has a 5 minute duration. As a result you have to move around quickly and shoot as much footage as possible. I managed to grab the defensive line, QBs, offensive line, wide receivers, and some coaches.

Exposure was not difficult tonight because the sun was down below the clouds and was regular and consistent. ISO 1600, f/4, 1/500th or faster shutter worked just fine.

Post-processing went pretty quickly. I dropped 505 exposures down to 28 published photos.

After roughly an hour of shooting various football players in several different posed positions I put down my 14-24mm lens and readied my 70-200mm for some rapid fire candid shots. The coaching staff signaled the team to join the staff over in the stands for a team shot. It took several minutes for the players to line up based on size and squad. During that time I rushed around and ripped about 150-200 frames of the players hamming it up with one another.

After shooting carefully posed shots and balancing the ambient sunlight with my own artificial light it was kinda nice to go back to just pure ambient light. As usual the meter saved me as I moved all over the field in different positions relative to the sun. Sometimes I shot with the sun over my shoulder, sometimes I shot with with the sun right in front of me.

To my surprise the candids didn't come out completely under or over-exposed. I expected them to not come out at all because of how quickly I was moving around the field and throwing the shutter around.

As we closed out July the heat really turned up in the Washington DC area. The Sunday before Media Day at Maryland the forecasters predicted the hottest temperatures of the year: high of 98 with a heat index of 105. And there we were: scheduled to photograph the football team down in the bowl of Byrd Stadium on the hottest day of the year.

I've shot 2 other football media day events at the University of Maryland and in both instances the heat was overwhelming. Prior to this year's event I put together a game plan of my own:

• Wear short-shorts (GAD), light colored shirt, and bring my photo-hat
  
• Bring water bottles in a cooler filled with ice
• Bring towels to put over my cameras so they don't reach 150 degrees in the heat
• Arrive 30 minutes early to set up and test all of my equipment

I also gave considerable thought about how to pose some of the players. In my bag of tricks was an AB-800 strobe and 2 SB-800 speedlights. I brought an umbrella but didn't pull it out - instead I stuck with a 20 degree bee cover for my strobe. I gelled one speedlight with light blue and rigged it all together with Pocket Wizards. The last speedlight I left as white and I used it for supporting light in different poses.

It was interesting to work with the football player in posed scenarios. Some of them were uncomfortable around the strobe and speedlights while others took quite naturally to it.

I started off the exposure process by starting at f/16 and 1/125th second exposure at ISO 100. That was a little bright during full sun so I brought it down to 1/250th and narrowed to f/18. That looked pretty good. I then worked on the output power of my strobe.

I started at 1/8 and brought it up to 1/4, then 1/2, and eventually full power. The players varied in complexion and their distance to the strobe. Some players were comfortable posing within 3 feet of the strobe while others stood back a good 5-8 feet. Even though I'd reposition them or adjust my own position I found that they'd back up or shift. So I'd work with zoom or I'd dial up the strobe output power to compensate.

Unfortunately there was a lot of noise in the background from other photographers and teammates. There really isn't anything I can do to control that though.

I was very happy, although exhausted, by the end of the shoot. I wound up with 105 shots we can run in the magazine and they look pretty good. During the middle of the shoot I inadvertently smudged the front of my 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. The smudge mark is present on several of the shots and that disappoints me. But I learned a lot from the event. I'm looking forward to the next posed photoshoot of some athletes!

On Sunday I packed up my gear and took the metro down to Verizon Center to catch the Mystics take on the Indiana Fever. I was looking forward to seeing Terrapin greats Crystal Langhorne and Marissa Coleman on the hardwood. It's too bad I missed the game a few weeks ago where Kristi Toliver competed against her former teammates. That would've been cool to shoot.

Every time I walk out onto the floor of Verizon I'm humbled by the scoreboard. It's incredible. Sometimes I want to just stand there and stare at it in awe.

Settings for the evening were the usual indoor stadium white balance, ISO 2000, 1/500th shutter, and either f/2.8 or f/4 for aperture. I've gone back and forth on whether to shoot f/2.8 or f/4. The D3 gives me the high ISO so I can narrow down to f/4 and pick up some extra sharpness. However, Lightroom exports contain sharpening that does a pretty good job. So the question is: do you use the optics for sharpness or isolation? I don't know the answer to that...

For lenses I stuck with my standard basketball issue: 300mm and 70-200mm. From time to time I wish the 70-200mm could back out to 35mm so I could catch the players under the hoop a little easier. I guess the real question is: would I trade mm at the long end of 70-200mm in order to get wider? If Nikon sold a 35-150mm would I use it? I don't know...

It was good getting back onto the court and taking some shots of the team.