Best of May Photograph

Baseball has not only been on my mind for the past three months, but in front of my camera, too!

I confess to being a baseball junkie and, fortunately, I am able to fill my cravings by putting many baseball games at the good side of my telephoto lens. I am blessed to be able to photograph our local high school baseball games. Capturing the action of the season is one of my favorite springtime past times! This is not always as easy as it might sound. Rain delays, rescheduled games, and other obstacles got in the way this season. It sure was a cold and rainy spring in northeast Pennsylvania this year! By the end of the season I obtain enough quality photographs to share with the team at their banquet. It is always fun for the players to see their year-in-review, and it is fun for me to have the opportunity to share some of my photographic skills.

Here is a shot I captured at the Mountain Valley Conference Championship Game. It is one of my favorite shots of the season because it shows the action and intensity of these two opposing players. This photo accomplishes several of my sports photography goals:

  1. Capture exciting on-field action during a competitive game
  2. Show the players making a quality play on the field
  3. Be sharp-focused on the subject
  4. Tell some of the story of this particular game
  5. Freeze the exciting action for posterity

Take a look at this photo and see if you agree that this photo accomplishes most of these goals.

Another Baseball Season is about to Begin!

Today I was back behind the viewfinder to take headshots of the local high school baseball team. My son, who is now a freshman, made the JV team. Last year the varsity team won their District Championship!

I’ve been photographing the action in their games for the past two years and year three looks to be another exciting year on the diamond. I coached baseball at the little league level for nine years and while I do miss the coaching, I get many thrills trying to capture the excitement with my camera!

I find that sports photography and wildlife photography have a lot in common. We can spend a lot of time just waiting for the perfect photo op to arise and then it is fast and furious. Then suddenly, as quickly as it came, it is all over. You’ve got to be ready in a moment’s notice or you will miss the action!

The first scrimmage is on Friday afternoon, so I have some things to get ready. I also wonder when I will next be able to carve out some time to photograph the majestic elk of Pennsylvania. Time just goes by too quickly and we all get too busy too often! I am sure the bulls are probably starting to drop their antlers by now.

In the meantime, it’s “Batter Up!” for me.

End of Year Madness!

Well, we are just about ready to say goodbye to 2010 and hello to 2011. Can you believe it?

Looking back over the past year, I have assembled some great photographic memories. Some are recorded for posterity in digital format, some of which you can see on my website. Other memories are etched in my mind and consists of terrific shots missed or great people I’ve met over the past year. 2010 has been a photographic blast for me!

In this end-of-season madness, I find myself doing some things that are important. I just upgraded my old wireless network router to a 300Mbps N Gigabit router. The main problem I was having on my network were IP address conflicts and slow speeds. I hope the new router will rectify these annoying problems. Upgrading equipment is important. I still have about 500 GB of empty space on my Drobo, so  an additional hard drive is on the short order list. I am still working on the Photoshop CS5 learning curve, which is pretty steep and will take me some time but will be well worth the effort.

All photo print orders have been fulfilled and it was a good year for me. I continue to learn the ins and outs of the photo business, which is exhilarating for me. Sometimes I stumble and fall, but most people are patient and a complete pleasure to work with. I am learning to streamline the process and am now able to offer more product services than a year ago.

And, of course, I continue to take time behind the viewfinder–my most favorite place to be these days, especially outdoors on a wildlife or sports shoot. Moments spent with the camera are “precious and few” to quote an old song.

I am excited to discover what the New Year will reveal for me photographically. I am looking forward to new opportunities and new learning!

Yes, 2010 was a great year, but I believe 2011 is going to be even better!

 

Making Photographs Better

Yesterday I was sharing some of the difficulty I am having in deciding which photos should make the cut. I presented three photographs for you to look at and decide how they rate.

Well, today I want to take one photo and see if I can make it better. It happens to be the second photograph from yesterday. This first photo is the exact same one as yesterday. The photograph that follows is my attempt to make it better. What do you think? Is it better than the original?

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions…

Photographing an event is great. In fact, all photography is great! I love it. I love the challenge of trying new things and trying to record the events as they happen and preserve the precious memories. This love for photography keeps me going, trying new things, and helps me keep a fresh approach to an event or photographic subject.

One problem with photography that I find is when it comes time to pick and best photos for prints or for a book there are just too many to pick from and I have to make difficult decisions. I suppose this is the struggle for any photo editor. I only taste it once in a while, but the taste is sometimes bitter for me.

I am currently working on a project of baseball photographs. I have to narrow the selection down to only seven photographs from this past year. I like to call these the best of the best. Once they are printed, these photographs will hang on a public wall for everyone to see for years to come.  So making these decisions does not come easy for me.

What makes for a good photograph?

Of course, I closely study the focus to be sure it’s clear. I also pay particular attention to the background of the photograph, which can be extremely distracting to the main subject. But what else makes a good photograph?

Here are three photos of the many I am currently looking at for this project. Which of these three is the best? Why? How would you choose the best of these three?

More Football

I photographed another football game last week but haven’t had time to include it here on my blog. The game hosted the 8th Grade teams of Stroudsburg and Pocono Mountain West. It was the last game of the season for these two teams and the last chance for off-season bragging rights! To add even more excitement to the game, Stroudsburg was vying for an undefeated season!

It was an exciting game to photograph! The game opened up with Pocono Mountain leading but Stroudsburg answered loudly and clearly. It was a game with hard-hitting, precision blocking, and great fundamental football. Both teams put it all out there on the field! It was a hard-fought game and in the end Stroudsburg prevailed with a solid win. Pocono Mountain made it interesting at the end, but it just wasn’t to be for them. Wow, what another exciting game!

Congratulations to Stroudsburg on their undefeated season!

Holiday Boutique on Saturday, November 6th

The 3rd Annual Holiday Boutique is being held on Saturday. For the 3rd straight year I will be displaying some of my photographs and other photo items at this craft fair.

It is a really great event to buy some wonderful Christmas gifts and the food is awesome! There will be crafts of all kinds.

I will have several photographs on display–mostly elk and some other wildlife. I will have my postcards for sale, some photo books, and my newly published book, “How I Photograph the Elk of Pennsylvania.” I will also have a slideshow of my sports photos running along with some other photographs. As always, I will enjoy talking about photography with whomever is willing to talk or has questions.

You can join us at Stroudsburg United Methodist Church, which is located at 547 Main Street, Stroudsbug, PA 18360. I will be there from 9am to 3pm. Join us to get started on your Christmas shopping. There will be plenty of crafts to choose from!

My First Soccer Game

As you all know, I enjoy photographing sports.

I mostly photograph baseball, which I’ve been doing for several years now. This year I started photographing football, too. I coached baseball and football for nine years, so I understand these games inside and out, which makes photographing them much easier than if I knew nothing about the game.

Soccer is another story. I’ve seen many soccer games over the years, but I never coached soccer or even played it that much. Last Saturday I had the opportunity to photograph a soccer game. I actually enjoyed it very much–more than I thought I might. The game was full of action and the girls played incredibly well!

Here are just a few photos I captured during this exciting game.

One Incredible Football Game!

East Stroudsburg-South vs. Pleasant Valley

This was the match-up for Friday night high school football here. It was billed to be the match-up of the year.

Two quick possessions  by South and the score was 14-0. So much for all the hype–so everyone thought. From that point on both teams began a battle for the ages. The game went back and forth almost with each possession. Pleasant Valley scored what was going to be a tie score at 35 each, but PV went for two instead of one extra point. They didn’t make it, so the score stood at 35-34. South was driving the ball just around mid-field when it was suddenly fourth and one yard to go. They chose to go for it instead of punting it deep into PV territory. But they didn’t make it and turned the ball over on downs.

PV put together an offensive drive that looked an awful lot like one of the Colts drives–precise passes and making critical 3rd downs. With 18 seconds left in the game, QB Derrick Walling threw a pass to RB Robert Getz for the go ahead touchdown. The TD pass ended up being the winning and final score. Absolutely amazing!

The sidelines were abuzz all night with photographers, television cameras, and reporters. It was a media maze! I was so glad to be on the sidelines photographing this incredible game and honing my sports photography skills. It may not have been a great night for me, but it sure was for these two football teams!

Football

Last night I photographed the Leighton vs. Pleasant Valley football game. It was a very good game from the PV side. Lehighton put up a good fight and it was only 21-0 at halftime. But it was hard to stop the three-pronged attack of the PV quarterback Walling, receiver Irving, and running back Getz. Some incredible receptions and tough running yards kept the Indians on their heels most of the night.

Photographing football sure is different from baseball. For one thing, the game was at night so I had to really make adjustments for the lighting conditions. Secondly, the flow of the game is much different. Fortunately, I coached football for about nine years so this wasn’t all that bad for me, but it was different from photographing a baseball game. Being at the middle school game this past week was also helpful and prepared me well for this high school game.

You can check out the photos I captured at this football game here. And I included a few photos here in my blog entry, too.