Warm Ups are For Photographers, Too
This time of year, I make it a point to reach the field early for high school games to catch as much of the pre-game warm ups as possible. With sunsets around 7:20 PM this past week, getting to the field early meant catching the last rays of daylight (although cloud cover late Friday meant less sunlight than expected).
Warm-ups give me an opportunity to get pictures of players who may not see as much playing time, or whose positions are more difficult to get clear shots of in action – like receivers.
Close Calls
Passing doesn’t happen much in youth football. When it does, the receivers and cornerbacks battle it out for the ball and give everything to try to make the catch.
And even after the first tip, the players still try and make the catch (check out the wide open eyes on the fallen Sharon Springs player in the white jersey):
Like a Heat Wave
With Forsyth County installing artificial turf (the Sprint Turf type) type last winter on the main playing field at Midway Park, I’ve been introduced to the joys of artificial turf on a regular basis. It has been an increasing presence at the High School level over the past several years in metro Atlanta, with my first exposure to it at St. Pius X and Dekalb County’s Halliford Stadium.
The park’s fields have heavy usage during the fall – Football practice five days a week and football games Saturday from 9 AM to 5 PM everyday. With Atlanta’s water usage restrictions and a county parks budget, they stand little chance of surviving deep into the season.
The Sprint Turf variety of artificial turf is more like regular grass than the old Astroturf. It has a longer, grass like fiber and is filled in with rubber “dirt” that helps make for a more cushioned, bouncy surface. The downside to the surface is the magnification of the heat level at the field surface level, which for Georgia in August and early September is significant.
For a photographer, it means several things:
- Extreme dehydration from sitting in the sun, on the turf’s surface. The actual surface of the field measured in excess of one-hundred degrees in the sun.
- Heat waves in the photos.
Keeping it Clean
One of the challenges with High School Sports, and especially indoors ones – is keeping the background of the photo clean. A clean background, with minimal distractions helps ensure the viewer will quickly focus on the subject of the photo. Photographers have several tools at their disposal to help ensure a clean background.
Greater Atlanta Christian School’s Long Forum is now playing host to their Volleyball squad as well. The Lady Spartans faced off against Wesleyan last week in what has traditionally been a great match up of two very good volleyball squads. It’s a superb facility for a number of reasons – but for purposes of keeping clean backgrounds, the black seating (when empty) does a great job of helping to isolate the athletes jersey colors from the background (black uniforms not withstanding as you will see.)
Football on a Smaller Scale
Following up my photography at the Lanier Bowl last fall, I’ve been invited to photograph games at Midway Park in Forsyth County. The Midway Wolverines, formerly the Midway Packers, is the largest football organization in Forsyth County and has proven to be highly successful. The name change occurred earlier this year to align the park with the local High School, West Forsyth High School.
The game is still played the same at the younger level as it is at High School, but the ratio of equipment to player mass is a lot different at the youth level. At the Kindergarten-First grade level, the kids are just beginning to learn to tackle and what’s needed to take down an opponent.
Fall is Back: High School Football Week 1
Well, maybe it isn’t officially fall – but August 28th marked the first weekend of the Georgia High School Football season. 2009 is the fourth season of High School football at Greater Atlanta Christian School that I’m photographing on behalf of Martin Photography.
As the season gets started, I try during warm-ups to get some great isolation shots of players that can be hard to catch during the game. Senior Julian Horton (WR/DB) will be a major contributor for GAC again this season (even taking some direct snaps).
USA Volleyball Boys’ Junior Olympic Championships
The July 4th weekend was the middle of the Boys’ Junior Olympic Championships at the Georgia World Congress Center. The event had nearly four hundred teams from across the United States (with many teams from Hawaii and Puerto Rico as well).
Indoor Volleyball is always a difficult sport to photograph well. There are a number of challenges, starting with the dim lighting typical in most gyms. The Georgia World Congress Center is no better than these conditions, as it is more built for conventions and trade shows than athletic competition.
Variety of shot was one of my goals for this event. This meant changing viewpoints a lot.
Pitchers II
Softball pitchers also make great subjects. There is a lot of opportunity to play with framing with the down-low delivery – by varying point of view between high and low, behind the plate, or outside the hitter.
…and Catchers
Catchers are part of that special breed in sports – not unlike goalkeepers in Lacrosse and Hockey, as well as the Offensive Line in Football. All are athletes who put their body in the way of a ball (or opponent) traveling at a high rate of speed.
Game Faces II (Midway Park Edition)
In the spirit of last spring’s post on the Game Faces of Norcross Soccer, I present the Game Faces of Midway Baseball and Softball (5 and 6 year olds).
Anticipation
The time at the plate is the most important in the mind of every five and six year old Baseball or Softball player. And when at the plate, all of the time is spent waiting for the pitch.
On the way…
Swing!
Looking for Special Light
Beyond capturing great action, it’s always challenging to find the best light, and light that will help set off the subject from everything else in the image. It also brings variety to what is available showing a single athlete.
The sun moves across Greater Atlanta Christian School’s pitch from the spectator side to the bench side and then drops behind the trees. With the thin foliage of March, this lets the light filter through the trees. Take the right angle, and your subject is fully lit, and the background in the shadows.
Boys Soccer Takes a Win
The Spartans Boys Soccer team fared better against AAA St. Pius, taking home a victory.
Girls Soccer at St. Pius X
I’ve photographed a number of football games at Atlanta’s St. Pius X High School over the past three years, but this was the first time I was there for soccer. They have a great Sprint Turf articifical surface, which means no rain outs (or cancellations after rain).
This was an out of classification match up for the Spartans – St. Pius X plays in Georgia’s AAA classification and GAC in the AA. It meant the Spartans were a little overmatched and ended up losing 5-2.
During warmups I laid down behind the net on the turf and shot through the net, and the goalkeeper’s feet as players took shots on goal.
Ball!
It’s common in Girls Lacrosse for the defenders to verbally assault a player with the ball. In this case, the Northview defender repeatedly screams “BALL!” at the GAC ball carrier:
Northview Has a Very Good Lacrosse Program
Once a year, I seem to photograph the Greater Atlanta Christian Girls Lacrosse teams (both Varsity and Junior Varsity) playing North Fulton County’s Northview High School Titans. And the outcome is the same – domination of the Lady Spartans by the talented Northview Squad.
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…)
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.
Looking for Light in All the Right Places
After working the high school football circuit for three seasons, I’ve come to acknowledge the fact that the light in your average high school stadium on Friday night will be of poor quality and quantity, with few exceptions.
When I get the odd opportunity to photograph a game during the late afternoon or early evening, I take full advantage.
North Forsyth High School’s Stadium’s west end zone sits in the shadow’s of the school’s Gymnasium and video scoreboard, allowing a small window of light to pass through and light one strip of field. The lit area is substantially brighter than the shadows and it creates a natural spotlight for the players to shine in.
