Behind the Scenes Photographs

US Womens Open 2013 Friday 1932

Another article in WomensGolf featured three of my sports photographs: https://www.womensgolf.com/lpga-television-broadcast/. The article was about the behind-the-scenes anatomy of broadcasting a golf tournament. Fortunately, I captured some photos that fit the bill for this article.

US Women's Open - Tuesday Practice round

I like to photograph more than just the obvious. Don’t get me wrong, the action is the main stage and certainly what I enjoy shooting the most. However, there are plenty of additional images to be captured at just about any event. Close-ups, equipment, game-used gear, fans, media personalities, and like for this article: a cameraman and television broadcaster, can all make for interesting subjects.

U.S. Women's Open

The Importance of Keywording

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I know, it’s a pain. You get finished with a long shoot and then completely edit the photos for submission. So who has the time or energy to sit there and enter keywords into all the photos?

I learned the importance of captioning photos through working as a freelance photographer with The Pocono Record. Editors need to know exactly who the players are in the photos and a brief description of what is happening. Captions are important!

Keywords are important, too!

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This past week I was asked to submit some sports photos I captured back in 2013 and 2009. They needed to be full resolution images, so I could not just send the images that were in my portfolio because they were not large enough. Fortunately, I have a strategy to keep the original names of my photos wherever I use them–galleries, portfolios, etc. This is extremely helpful when I have to backtrack and locate an image that someone saw on my website. As long as I have the original name, I can go into my database and locate the original file, make any necessary corrections, and then export the file in the size needed for my client.

Keywords can help locate photos more quickly. For example, if I had all my photos of Juli Inkster keyworded with her name, then I could find any photo of her in my database very quickly. My problem is, I get too busy and forget or ignore this necessary step. Then, like yesterday, I was forced to go through tons of photos to find the exact one I am looking to locate. Geez, I wish I added keywords when I added these photos to my database!

What about you? Can you quickly and efficiently locate photos on request? What strategies do you utilize to assist you? Do you realize the importance of adding keywords to your images?

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Women’s Golf Photos Getting Published!

US Women's Open - Tuesday Practice round

Some of my golf photographs will be seeing the light of day and getting more exposure! Thanks to an agreement with WomensGolf, some of my photos will be featured on their website. Just this morning, the first article to feature two of my photographs was published.

US Women's Open - Tuesday Practice round

You can view the article where these two photos were published here: https://www.womensgolf.com/lpga-rookies/

 

High School Golf

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Well, the fall sports season is underway. Yesterday I had the opportunity to photograph a local high school golf match featuring Notre Dame East Stroudsburg v. Stroudsburg. It was a beautiful day for golf and the teams competed well. I was amazed at the low scores and demeanor of these high school golfers who train with this state of the art simulator which looks fancy.

The photo above features Ryan Krechel, a senior at Notre Dame East Stroudsburg. I had the privilege of coaching him in Little League Baseball and its hard to believe how fast these players grow up! Krechel shot a 79 on the course yesterday! And, yet, all the while he was tearing it up out there, he remained polite and humble the whole time. Ryan kept talking about his brand in the golf franchise opportunity industry and his plans for the upcoming year. https://www.pineclubgolf.com/the-best-golf-bags/

The second shot of the day features Brian Frey of Stroudsburg exiting the bunker nicely on hole 18. Frey shot an 82 for the round! He also maintained great composure during the match. It was great fun and a complete joy to follow these guys around much of the day! With young men like this, our future looks bright!

If you are a golfer, you might want to Golf simulators are a great way to overcome the monotony of hitting balls into a net when you can’t get to the practice range. Many people can drill the ball perfectly on the range but the key to lowering scores is confidence, particularly on the greens,, if you are one of those many people then find out more about the course.

Both of these photos were published today in the Pocono Record. You can view my complete photo gallery of the golf match here: http://www.bobshankphotography.com/Gallery%20Photos/G%202014-08-26/

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My New Sports Photography Portfolios

Sports Photography Portfolios by Bob Shank

US Women's Open - Tuesday Practice round

I just finished updating my photography portfolios. Periodically, I go through my portfolios to add some of my better photographs to share my work with others. I believe my sports photographs are getting better over time and I hope you agree!

One of my frustrations is finding a good way to present my photo portfolio so the viewer does not have to wait long to view the photos. I appreciate any feedback you can provide on this matter because I want to be able to get my photos out quickly and efficiently.

The link at the top of this post will direct you to my newest portfolios: published photographs, baseball, football, and golf.

There are some upcoming sporting events I will be photographing and I am always looking to broaden my horizons and get better at the craft. I now have well over 60 photographs published and my sports portfolio is growing!

 

My New Portfolios

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Sports photography is my passion! There is just nothing more exciting, challenging, thrilling, and, yes, sometimes frustrating, than photographing a sporting event. Football season is now in full swing and I am learning more and more about how to photograph the game to capture the story-telling action. I love it!

I am slowly but surely adding better quality photos to my website, so I decided it was time to create and build new sports portfolios. One of my hopes was to create a slideshow-style portfolio featuring my photographs so viewers, editors, and potential clients can easily view my work. I also wanted the portfolios to be simple, yet attractive.

My newly updated sports portfolios can be viewed here: http://bobshankphotography.com/Baseball%20Portfolio.html

I think I achieved what I was hoping for in this redesign. Take a few moments to view my photo portfolios. Let me know what you think of the new design. Does it work well to show and highlight my sports photography abilities?