Promotion Shoot
Havre de Grace volleyball player John Beck is looking to get a volleyball scholarship. He is making a video to send out to colleges and the video will integrate still photos as well. Here are a few photos from a game I shot of him a couple weeks ago.
Girls Basketball with Off-Camera Flash
Two local photographers, Russell Tracy and Dave Yoakum contacted me to come out to meet and shoot with them sometime. That time came last Thursday night at Fallston High School. Russell and Dave are practicing their off-camera techniques and this would be a good opportunity to learn from each other.
The Fallston gym, like most in Harford County, has very little room, and no balcony at the end of court which prevents getting our lights high and pointed parallel to the sidelines. We had to place the lights on the sides, which create too much crosslighting and harsh shadows.
When using strobes/flashes, ideally you want to over power the ambient light by 3 to 4 stops so that when you are shooting at your camera’s sync speed (typically 1/250 sec), the quick burst of light from the strobes is what freezes the action and not the shutter speed. I tried bouncing my 580EXs off the back wall to create a large light source, but my flashes, even on full power, could only muster about 2 stops over ambient. In a darker lit gym, this method would probably work, but Fallston’s ambient lighting is better than average.
I had to stick with direct light from the corners of the gym. I placed my flashes on my 7-foot light stands and set them each to 1/8 power, 28mm zoom and aimed them towards the top of the key.
Here are some samples from the night.
John Carroll Wins Home Opener
The John Carroll Patriots wrestling team opened their home schedule against Boy’s Latin on Tuesday afternoon with a 56-18 win.
The NFL Experience
I can finally say, “Yes, I’ve shot an NFL game.”
I’ve shot many high school games, a college game, but they don’t compare to the NFL Experience. To those who shoot the NFL regularly, it’s probably old hat for you, but for me it was like getting to fly first class after riding in coach all my life.
The first thing that really surprised me was how big these guys are. Not sure where these guys hang out all week, but I’ve never seen people this enormous at the grocery store or mall.
Photographing the game is pretty much the same — except the players move so much faster, and passes get to their intended receivers (or defensive players) in a blink of an eye.
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