In this example, I used the 300mm lens. At the right distance, it compresses items and makes them appear closer together – in this case, making the lane dividers appear stacked.

Swimmers in lanes 1 and 2 are close enough to touch – or in the case of a longer lens, isolate on the face.

Slightly different distance and viewpoint again with a 300mm lens. This time the swimmers in the background create a repetition of the first swimmer’s arm.

I used a longer exposure time – 1/30 of a second instead of 1/400 second – to allow some of the swimmer’s motion to blur as well as create the flowing water effect. The shot is a low percentage outcome – between the motion of the swimmer, and the risk of the camera shaking in your hands, there is a lot of chance to miss the shot. I’ve used these shutter speeds regularly for motorsports, so it’s a technique I’ve honed over time.

Without further delay, I introduce game faces.

It was a beautiful night for football. After a warm day, the sun set well before the game.

The Spartans’ parents help add a little bit Hollywood to the player run on during the pregame with smoke machines and streamer launchers.

Senior Ben Donald was again handed the ball in the backfield.

I’ve been trying to catch this play all season and this was the best I got. A second quarter Spartans touchdown.

The Spartans defense came strong all evening. In the second half the Spartans blocked a Cook extra point to help keep it close.

In the fourth quarter, Christian Robinson blocked and recovered a Cook punt for a touchdown to bring the Spartans closer. The punter was deep in his own end zone, which is always a dangerous situation. Good positioning as a photographer helps catch this play at the peak.

Coach Chupp spoke to the team after the game to console them in the loss. I dialed down the power on the flash here and used more of the ambient light, just using the flash to reduce some shadows.

I traveled Saturday, to Easley, South Carolina to the Easley Gymnastics Training Center for a team and individual photo session.

The average team and individual photo shoot has the potential to be pretty mechanical and like a production line – one team member after another. This wasn’t the case here.

There were several challenges to confront. In any indoor sports environment at the lower levels, you will usually find poor lighting. In gymnastics training centers, there are also usually many pieces of equipment close together and a lot going on at any time during a training day.

One of the central rules of photography is to make sure the subject of your photograph is clear. If you can’t quickly decide who the subject is, then you have lost. There are several ways a photographer can do this – commonly with sports I use depth of field (an infocus subject against a blurred background). Saturday I allowed the light to be my differentiation point.

This frame was taken within five feet of another balance beam behind it, and more apparatus behind it. It was taken with the lights on in the gym, and minimal post-processing performed.

I used a pair of Alien Bee 800 strobes to light the photo. From the subject’s front, one strobe was set at just above head-level with a twenty degree grid on it. The grid acts to help focus and constrain the grid to a twenty degree spread. It was placed at the front of the balance beam – only a couple feet away.

The second strobe I used served to reduce shadows. I used a sixty inch Eclipse shoot-through umbrella to help reduce the shadows. The lighting on the subject’s hand and leg came from the second light exclusively.

In the end, it yields a dramatic result and also completely removes the background distractions.