I just realised that this is my first blog post for 2021, I really need to up my game and Do Better.

I thought I would touch on Sports Photography with this post. I have touch on this before. Hope you enjoy and I am happy to answer any questions, I also take critique and criticism very well.

Sports Photography is a genre of photography that tends to get overlooked by many sporting bodies. The only time they think about images is after the game is over and they see that there was someone there capturing images so they approach that person and ask if pictures can be sent to the organisation.

Some of the sporting events I shoot are for my own portfolio, for example, my daughter, a competitive swimmer, and her competitors will be my subject for my own records and to freely share with the swim club my daughter is a member of, a parent run club. However, for many events I work under contract and have a time frame within which to deliver images and there are certain images I know I need to capture to fulfill my obligations.

Sports Photography is not for everyone because for the entire time you are on site your need to be keenly aware and be ready to shoot the action as it happens. Sports Photography is also not an inexpensive genre to shoot because of the equipment that makes life easier, long lenses to be able to fill the frame from a distance, fast aperture lenses, cameras that are capable of a high frames per second (FPS), although this is less important than other features like high ISO capability because many sports occur at night and under stadium lights. To the human eye the lights may seem bright but to a camera sensor the scenery is dark and the only way to get sufficient light to the sensor to properly expose is to use high ISO. High ISO introduces noise that degrades the quality of the image. Some cameras are designed to shoot relatively clean images at high ISO. For example, for my sports work I use older Nikon D3s camera bodies, which I can very comfortably shoot at ISO 6000 or 8000 and still have very usable images without much denoise editing.

When I am under contract there are stock images that I need to get for delivery to the client, for example, Football (Soccer) players in action running with ball down the flanks, getting round an opposing player or the opposing player going in for a successful slide tackle. It could be a 100m sprinter that I capture mid-race at a high shutter speed to freeze the action or it could be a long jumper jumping into the pit coming toward the camera. Once I have the stock images I need to deliver I can begin to play, one thing I will often do is set a slow shutter speed and pan the athlete to show some movement. or I will use a shutter speed that will freeze the head and torso of the athlete but allow some blurring of hands and feet to create a sense of movement.

Many do not see Sports Photography as an artform but just as with any other genre of photography, art can indeed be created while shooting sports.

I enjoy shooting sports because sports can be very emotional, anger, frustration, joy or pain are ever present in sports. I also enjoy shooting sports because it is truly the capture of fleeting moments that the human eye will often overlook and the brain will ne register, often times these moments come outside of heated action with opponents.

When shooting sports that involve a ball, Football (Soccer), Golf, Cricket, etc. if I capture an image, no matter how good the image is from a focus and sharpness perspective, I will not publish that image because to me the ball must be in the frame. An image of two footballers going up to head a ball just looks like two players jumping if the ball is not in the frame, if the footballer is kicking the ball and the ball is not in frame, it is just someone swinging his/her leg. The golf swing is the same way, if the ball is not in the shot and it is an action shot, it is just someone swinging a golf club, it could very well be a practice swing. Some may disagree with my position on this but for my own work this is of paramount important.

In closing, it is up to us to help sporting organisations to under stand the importance of photos of event for the documenting of history, a still photo can be published and printed, video requires too many variables to share on a continuous basis and video does not provide the hard, tangible product.

If Sports Photography is of interest to you starting the going to little league baseball, mini-minor football and capture images there as practice. This would also tell you if you are cut out for Sports Photography and help you to decide if the investment in the equipment needed to shoot contractable (may not be a word) work is something you wish to do.

What’s in my Sports Photography bag?

2 - Nikon D3s bodies