Sports Photography

I don't post many photos to this blog twice, but this one was submitted to a competition yesterday and I thought I would share it with you one more time. This is the photo that is currently on my home screen of my iPod and it's been there for quite some time. I love many things about this photo including the composition, the lighting, the show of talent, the show of strength, and the fact that it's my son.

10,000 photographs

I shot over 10,000 images last weekend and am in the process of weeding through them. My workflow allows me to process them quite quickly, but there are still a LOT of shots to go through. Here is one of the shots I edited today.

Michigan Level 6 State Champion on Rings

Here is a shot of this year's State champion on Rings for level 6 men's gymnastics. Look at the poise and determination on this athlete's face!

High Bar Determination

The sport of gymnastics really has a lot to offer for youths (By the way I can't type that word "youths" without thinking of the way it was said in the movie My Cousin Vinnie, Youts, Yuts, Youths). The sport provides strength, determination, sportsmanship, flexibility, friendship, and the spirit of competition. Here is one such youth from last weekend who was exercising his determination to complete the high bar event.

High Bar Grips

One theme that I have been incorporating in my gymnastics photography this year is to focus on the hands and where they meet the aparatus. This shot is a boy on the high bar at a gymnastics meet this past weekend.

Stuffed Animal Guide

I haven't quite figured it out yet, but this stuffed animal needs to be near a particular gymnast during every event. I thought that the animal needed to be the focus of one of my shots since it was a part of the story of the day.

Grasping the Pommel

I have many photos of the full body of a gymnast performing this move. The whole gymnast fills the frame and you can see the skill. So in this shot I wanted to focus on just what the hands were doing to give a sense of strength and positioning to the event.

Grips

I love capturing these types of photos sometimes, because it helps tell the story of the day or in this case the gymnastics meet. Here are a gymnasts hands with grips prepped and ready to go.

Gymnastics Salute

Today was another day of gymnastics photography. Here's a boy getting ready to perform on the floor exercise. I thought this shot was a nice study of the moment with the flag in the background.

Capture images that mean something

Strive to capture images that mean something. I try to fill the frame with emotion, with passion, with love, with grief, with fun, with beauty, and with meaning. I have several weddings to shoot this year, and I look forward to capturing those moments that need to be remembered and those moments that have meaning. Capturing the bride touch her new husband's shoulder, or just a shot of the ring being placed on the finger for the first time. I look forward to seeing the father of the Bride through the view finder and capturing that moment when he cries or the expression he has on his face during the Daddy daughter dance. I capture images that means something, and that means the world to me.

Here's a shot that means a lot to me:

Gymnastics and 50,000 shutter releases

The Nikon D80 is rated for 50,000 shutter releases. That means after 50 thousand clicks of the shutter there is a chance that it will start to fail. Well mine started to fail yesterday during the gymnastics competition and I was not happy about it. I was still able to capture about 1000 good images, but the thing that struck me was how quickly this camera started to fail on me. I have only had this camera for 14 months (conveniently after the warranty is up of course.) I guess Nikon will be giving my camera a tuneup soon. This also gives me a great opportunity to upgrade to the D300.

Ring in the new year

Happy new year everyone.

Beam Feet

Beam Feet

This photo is about 6 months old, but I thought I would share it with you. It's one of the first really great shots I took with my D80. This gymnastics show had a "No Video Taping" policy, but cameras were allowed. I had my D80 mounted on a monopod and was approached a couple of times to turn off my video camera.

Fire Hydrant Pommel

Fire Hydrant Pommel

Gymnasts seem to find gymnastics everywhere. This boy is no exception.

Keeping Track

Keeping Track

Keeping track of gym scores is a past time exercised by parents in the stands. We wait 30 minutes to an hour for our child to perform 30 seconds of a routine. When it's all complete, we have a list of scores that we will soon not look at, but the memories of the events live on our video cameras. Yes, we have 3 minutes of video at the end of a gym meet. We waited 4 hours for 3 minutes of video?

Gym Ceiling

Gym Ceiling

I love how the lines of the basketball hoops converge to the center of this shot.

Save This Sport

Save This Sport

One of the greatest sports around, gymnastics requires stamina, strength, repetition, body positioning, and a whole lot of guts. Unfortunately this sport is slowly dying. The number of colleges that still have gymnastics as a sport has really diminished. In 1969, there were 230 mens collegiate gymnastics teams in the US. Today there are 20 NCAA teams and about 15 collegiate club teams. If you get a chance, visit a gymnastics center, you would be amazed at the talent out there.

Proud Coach

Proud Coach

I love the story that this photo tells. The coach smiles as his gymnast pulls off a very difficult release move, while the athlete is highly focused on the task that he had worked so many hours to perfect. Notice how a cloud of smoke rises in the air from the chalk required to do the move.

ISO: 640
Focal Length: 50MM
Shutter Speed: 1/250s
Aperture: F2.2

Gymnast Salute

Gymnast Salute

"Gymnast Salute" These are the words that a gymnast hears after they have received a trophy such as this these. Sunday was a big gymnastics day full of sports photography. I really enjoy sports photography because you need to time your shot just right. It not only requires knowledge of photography, but also requires knowledge of the sport in order to get that well timed shot. In the following photo, I was familiar with the routine enough to know when to catch the flare on the mushroom. The following shot was taken with my 50mm 1.8 lens. Lighting in the gym is always horrible, so having a fast lens (F/1.8) is a must.

Mushroom Flare

Got Chalk?

Got Chalk?

Gymnastics is a way of life, and chalk is a big part of the sport. Sometimes the rituals before a sporting event are just as interesting as the event itself. The lighting at a gymnastics meet is notoriously horrible, and the shots usually obtained are a bit on the dark side. This one required a bit of a lightening, but the end result works well.

Lens: 70-210mm at 210mm
Aperture: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 400