First Glimpse of Spring (Part III): Boys Soccer
The February weather was in full effect by the 7:30 PM start time of the Boys Soccer match with The Walker School. Temperatures were in the forties and destined to be in the 30′s by the end of the game.
Regulation ended after eighty minutes with the teams locked at 1-1. Several rounds of penalty kicks later, Senior Chris Thomas scored the fourth and decisive goal to put away the victory (4-2).
First Glimpse of Spring (Part II): Girls Soccer
I’ve mentioned before on this blog the Soccer season at Greater Atlanta Christian School is the spring equivalent of the football season. Both teams have proven to be successful over the years I’ve worked with Martin Photography at Greater Atlanta Christian School.
The Soccer Pitch has always proven to be a challenging venue, with it’s high treeline surrounding the field as well as the natural valley that the field sits in. However, early enough in the evening the light is really even across the entire field.
Senior Samantha Abrahart is a University of South Carolina signee.
First Glimpse of Spring (Part I): Lacrosse
Friday evening I had the opportunity to photograph three of Greater Atlanta Christian School’s spring Varsity teams. Although these are spring sports, the season for the Georgia High Schools Assosciation starts very early, in late February. And although we’ve had some warm weather, Friday definitely was not. Highs Friday were around fifty, but quickly changed as the sun started setting.
The Spartans Lacrosse program seems to be improving this year versus last. I only shot the first half of the game, but the Spartans lead at half time.
In Search of New Shots
After two covering Basketball the last two weekends, I started looking for new concepts and looks this week as the Spartans celebrated their Senior night and took on Westminster.
Basketball has a lot of repetition to the game flow. Drive, shoot, rebound, retreat. If you photograph from the same viewpoint, you end up with repetitive images.
One concept I’ve had in mind after the first weekend was to catch a high flying player in isolation (or maybe with a second player) going up for a layup, dunk or rebound against the backdrop of the student section. Unfortunately, GAC’s Trent Wiedeman missed tonight’s game so I was left without the tallest man on the floor. I was also short a few student’s in the student section as the school’s winter break started Friday.
I shot from the opposite end of the floor with the 300/f2.8. (more…)
A Big Win and an Equally Big Loss
Greater Atlanta Christian School took a big win in the Boys match up and a big loss in the girls matchup last Friday.
The Student Section
GAC’s student body has taken well to the new Long Forum’s student seating at the end of the floor. They have brought a new enthusiasm to the basketball games that was missing at the old gym.
The umbrellas disappeared this week against Westminster, but was replaced by a lot of banter traded with the visiting team.
It’s Open: The Long Forum at Greater Atlanta Christian School
Saturday I worked the day’s events at Greater Atlanta Christian School. After starting the day with the Spartans Hall of Fame Inductions, followed by the crowning of the Homecoming court, I photographed a pair of Varsity Basketball Games.
The Long Forum is Greater Atlanta Christian’s new 3,000 seat multi-purpose arena. With video screens, real seating, high tech lighting the building is the ultimate in high school sporting facilities. Game day finally arrived after years of planning.
Back to School – Basketball at Lovett
Last Friday I returned to the playing field, so to speak, with my first engagement for Martin Photography for the Winter season as three Greater Atlanta Christian School teams met with the Lovett School at Lovett’s Atlanta campus.
I actually photographed three different games in two different gymnasiums last Friday – first the Girls Varsity match in the main Gymnasium, followed by the 9th Grade and JV Boys games in the lower school gymnasium. As I needed to be mobile, I kept to on-camera lighting. However, I used my Bogen Manfrotto 233B Flash bracket on my main camera body to get my flash high off of the camera to reduce the occurence of red eye and help make the light a little more natural.
As with Football, the flash is used to create the “Stop Action” needed for a crisp photograph. 1/4 Power on the Canon 550EX was all that was needed to give enough light at the closer ranges that basketball is photographed at. It allowed for use of ISO400 and a more narrow aperture (f4 to f5.6, depending on proximity to play) to allow more depth of field using the 70-200 zoom.
From the Cold to the Sauna: Swim and Dive
After spending several cold and wet nights in the rain at GAC Football games, I switched gears to cover the Varsity swimming and diving team. GAC’s great Aquatic Center is my favorite current venue on the campus (although it will surely be eclipsed by the Long Forum when it opens next year.)
Swimming and diving is a good change of pace from most team sports I regularly cover. There’s a lot of athletes to cover, there is constant action, and there are opportunities to go different directions.
Fogged In: Playoff Football at Callaway
Greater Atlanta Christian traveled Friday night to Lagrange to face Region 5-AA champion Callaway High School. GAC earned entry last week to the playoffs with Westminster’s defeat of Blessed Trinity and was the #4 seed from Region 6-AA.
The weather followed last week’s trend – heavy rain Friday afternoon, however, this time, it cleared before game time and left heavy fog.
While it is easy to have expectations about what happens when at #1 seed meets a #4 seed in any sport or season, GAC largely defied expectations. GAC went up 7-0 on their first drive and kept pace with Callaway the rest of the evening. 
GAC versus Buford in a Downpour
Since I’ve been covering Greater Atlanta Christian football for Martin Photography, the Buford Wolves have proved to be the toughest opponent, every year. Buford has built a winning tradition in football that is unmatched statewide in AA.
Buford entered the final game of the regular season undefeated since their playoff loss in 2006. GAC entered the game needing either a win against Buford or a win by Westminster over Blessed Trinity.
Did I mention the forecast called for rain?
With the time change, I knew I would miss all of the natural light during pre-game that I’ve enjoyed up until this week. The sun sets around 5:30 now, and with the rain there would be no great sunset to photograph. I made it a point to visit the GAC locker room to view the pre-game ritual. Quarterback Colton Chapple receives a few words from a coach before heading out for the Captains’ meeting at midfield.
And rain it did. The rain slicked ball caused several fumbles. Fullback Blake Southerland gives chase (and eventually recovers) a first quarter fumble.
High Flying Volleyball
The most exciting element of volleyball is the play at and above the net. When photographing Saturday’s matches between Greater Atlanta Christian and Henry County, and later Marietta’s the Walker School, my goal was to get tight isolation on the play at the net.
Saturday’s matches were all at Holy Innocents Episcopal School in Dunwoody. The gym has average lighting when photographing from from floor level, but when shooting down on the participants you almost double your light. As the faces are looking up and facing the lights directly, you no longer have a shadow falling on the face. This lets you increase your shutter speed and get better stop action.
When shooting volleyball, I use a combination of lenses – usually the 70-200 and 300/2.8. I spend a lot of time following individual players and waiting for the rhythm of the game to bring the ball their way. When it does, I’ll shoot a two or three shot burst to get the full range of action and capture a great face waiting for the ball.
Change of Plans: Rainy Night at Lovett
Friday’s AA match-up of Greater Atlanta Christian at Atlanta’s Lovett School had a lot of dimensions. The two squads were both hoping to improve their chances of making the playoffs with a victory. With region 6-AA receiving four playoff slots, undefeated Buford is in the driver’s seats, trailed by Blessed Trinity (one loss), GAC (one loss in region play entering this week) and Lovett (two losses entering this week).
The weather proved to be a big part of the game, at least from my point of view. A rainy Friday hit Atlanta with more than an inch of rain, leaving the field very wet and with light rain still falling at game time. The rain was almost fog light and created some refractions when coupled with flash.
So plans changed: I decided to use Lovett’s lights (slightly better than average in quality) to light tonight’s game rather than my usual flash setup. I protected my primary body (with the 300/f2.8 mounted) with Lightware’s Rain Cover. It’s a basic cape of heavy duty water resistant nylon and does a good job of keeping things dry.
I swapped out my normal 70-200/2.8 on the second body for a 50mm/1.8 lens to give some additional light for a higher shutter speed with the natural light. The wider field of view helped on the Spartans first scoring run.
Firing on All Cylinders – GAC Defeats Avondale
It looks like the Spartans have managed to turn around their early season difficulties with another win, this time against DeKalb County’s Avondale High School. At the same time, I felt like I was starting to hit a rhythm with camera and flash coming together to pick up the action in another Spartans’ win.
I’ll have a more in-depth look at flash in high school football next week after the match-up against Atlanta’s Lovett School.
Decatur’s New Home and Light Quality Versus Quantity
Friday night Greater Atlanta Christian School traveled to Decatur High School in downtown Decatur for another Region 6-AA match up. It was also Greater Atlanta Christian’s first visit to Decatur’s new stadium.
Last fall, GAC was the last opponent at a Decatur home date and closed out the stadium. Since then, Decatur demolished and rebuilt their football stadium in great fashion.
The field surface is a new Sprinturf playing surface, which has become a popular option in drought-prone metro Atlanta. Gone are the uneven surface and thinning grass – replaced with a well-cushioned durable surface. The field now has seating on both sides, a video scoreboard, and the best lights I’ve seen in three years of high school football beat coverage.
One of the big controversies (if you can call it that) in high school football photography is how to get the best photographs in the low light of most stadiums. Most photographers usually say, “If I could use a higher ISO with good quality then I would.” However, in most situations in high school football even a higher ISO (film speed equivalent) will not solve the problems of the lights.
When the Best Photos of the Game Occur After the Game
Greater Atlanta Christian traveled to Roswell Friday night to face off against the Blessed Trinity Titans. Blessed Trinity had moved down from 3A prior to this season and was having a strong start to their season. The Spartans entered the evening at 0-4.
Still new Head Coach Ken Robinson still had not earned his first victory. When the clock went below 1:30 in the fourth quarter, it became evident that the Spartans would emerge from this game victorious and the emotions started pouring on the sidelines and coaches and players congratulated Coach Robinson
on his first victory. And then the inevitable happened…
Volleyball: Cross-Training for Photographers
I’m a big fan of using different sports to expand my photographic horizons and improve my skills. When you look at it in the broad view, there are a lot of things across sports that are very similar.
Consider a header in soccer. It’s photographically similar to a reception in football, and to a spike in volleyball. A fast moving ball that you are trying to predict where it is going. That judgment carries through to any sport you photograph.
High school volleyball is difficult to shoot because of the light levels in most gyms. Without extremely large aperture lenses (f1.8 or f2.0) it is difficult to get good stop action.
Thursday’s match at Wesleyan was picked for coverage because Wesleyan has a great field house, with a better than average lighting system and the advantage of being able to get above the floor to catch faces in action.
Baylor Catches GAC From Behind
Greater Atlanta Christian School hosted Chattanooga’s The Baylor School. Unfortunately for the Spartans, the long distance traveled by Baylor to Norcross did not tilt the game in their favor.
Despite starting off with a scoring drive on the first possession, Baylor ultimately caught GAC 44-22.
Greater Atlanta Christian’s strongest play came on their first possession. The Spartans drove the ball to the goal line, and then Colton Chapple tried (unsuccessfully) to dive in and then Blake Southerland capped the drive with a powerful push into the end zone.
Thursday Night Underclass Football
I love the opportunities that JV and 9th Grade Freshman Football provide.
The games always start (and usually finish) in daylight, and more specifically, go through the golden hour of the day. I get the benefit of higher shutter speeds and shooting natural light. Sometimes, like last Thursday at St. Pius X in Atlanta, you get the additional benefit of back to back games.
Natural light means no flash – and I can take full advantage of the 30D’s five frame per second bursts.
A Good Night for Baseball
Tuesday proved to be a good evening for Baseball. The weather cooperated (unlike recently for Norcross Soccer) and the light was great as the evening progressed.
I took the opportunity to do two different things with Baseball this time. To really personalize the coverage, I added my 1.4x teleconverter to my 300/2.8 to shoot at 420mm. From down the third base line, this gave me a tight frame at home plate (that proved very useful later). I also spent a couple innings shooting from a platform in left-center field.
Girls Lacrosse: Athletic Growing Pains
Before the game story, I’ll mention was scheduled to shoot an evening of Norcross Soccer but the recent rain (over the weekend) forced the parks department to close the fields and cancel the games. Seeing that it was unlikely to rain that evening I looked for other opportunities – and landed at Greater Atlanta Christian for a Girls Lacrosse Doubleheader.
Lacrosse is still in its infancy in Georgia and the Atlanta Metro area. The state organizes all participating high schools into a single division for competition, where as in football there are five different designations (A being the smallest and AAAAA being the largest, with Greater Atlanta Christian in AA).
This year is the first year Greater Atlanta Christian has fielded varsity girls and boys lacrosse teams. So when they meet up against a powerhouse team from one of the North Fulton high schools, it makes for a one-sided game. Tuesday night against Centennial actually was two one-sided games.
The standard in photographing games is taking what you get. You can’t create the action yourself; you just have to be able to find it. In games with little offense, there are plenty of compelling defensive stories.
I spent some time working on goalkeeper photos before and during the game. I make it a point in a lot of field sports to shoot warm-ups. Shooting warm-ups gives you the ability to shoot from angles not available during the game, like right in the middle of the field facing the goalkeeper. Sometimes the shots compose themselves.
In game, a view from the sidelines and a fast shutter let me capture the ball in flight towards the goal. Working with a wider view of the field keeps the attacking playe in the frame.
Working defense in lacrosse is an important part of the game’s flow.
I did get a chance at some offense, which coincided well with the light turning beautiful and GAC attacking towards the sun. It was like a switch was flipped – then there was great golden light after several hours of overcast weather.
Friday Night Lights, Spring Edition
Soccer is as close to a full-school gathering for athletics as Greater Atlanta Christian comes in the spring. While it doesn’t reach the levels that football does in the fall, it is a well-followed sport.
Friday night GAC honored the Seniors on the Soccer team, and took the field against Decatur in a pair of matches. Both teams handled their opponent well.
One of the harder parts of shooting soccer is the game flow is far more open than many sports (Football for example). The game quickly changes ends across a large open field. It makes covering all aspects of the game difficult.
I’ll usually work a rotation around the field – working from one end to the other along the end lines and the sidelines. Sidelines offer a different view of the game – you can watch the players working up the field, passing as they go. It’s also where the goal keeper’s kicks tend to land so it’s prime land for a header or other in-flight kicks.
Even so, working at the end line with a long lens and a high resolution camera gives you the ability to tighten up midfield action greatly with cropping.
Baseball Day Games
Talk about the traditional set up – Baseball played on a Saturday afternoon. I grew up in the era of the NBC Baseball Game of the Week on Saturdays with a classic voice like Vin Scully calling the game. I also spent many Saturdays on the diamond myself, either behind the plate or in the infield.
Like most of the other Varsity sports in High Schools in the Atlanta area, the majority of the games are either twilight or evening games. However, they do have many Saturday day games scheduled.
After finishing the Girls Lacrosse game, I moved across the Greater Atlanta Christian campus to the Baseball diamond for a few innings.
Baseball’s natural rhythm and play lead to looking for different types of image than you look for in your average field sport. You also spend a lot of time experimenting with angles and viewpoins to find a different look.
It’s not uncommon to photograph the pitcher from many angles. However, I tried to maintain the context of the relationship of the pitcher, hitter and catcher (and by default, the umpire).
The second example, with a right handed hitter, I used the hitter’s head and elbow to help frame the pitcher in his follow through.
The pace of the game also leads to a lot more time on the bench for the players engaging in conversation and bench jockeying of their teammates and opponents. The dugouts at Greater Atlanta Christian sit on field level with only a half fence in front, so the players spend a lot of time on the rail.
Soccer Doubleheader
Spring means Soccer. Luckily, since the change to daylight savings time it also means more light later in the evening on the Soccer pitch.
As always, the evening started with a girls game. The girls get the benefit of at least half of the field in daylight, and a beautiful rim light when shot from the spectator’s side of the field.
Starting out in photography, most everyone fears shooting a backlit situation. It means generally that you have too much light coming into the camera and the faces will be shadowed. However, it is very manageable and has the positive effect of creating a nice rim light that helps separate subject and background.
The header is the king of soccer action shots. So much to it – in many cases bodies crashing into each other at great heights, and great facial expressions on the players.
The Boys’ later start has the effect of less light and needing to push to a higher ISO equivalent. However, you can still get good stop action early in the evening.
Another header from the Boys this time – with the Providence Christian Academy defender trying to crash the party.
