Category Archives: sports

Fall Sports

A new season and new photo challenges. I have never attempted to take photos of kids playing baseball or soccer, but decided to give it a shot. As it happened, at the local high school there was a baseball game and soccer match going on at the same time this morning. So, I spent an hour or so giving it “a shot.” I found the baseball much easier, but also less interesting. As 90 percent of the action is between the pitcher and batter, that’s basically all I photographed. Here’s my favorite.

Baseball pitcher

The other baseball photos can be seen here.

Soccer, on the other hand, was much more challenging (and interesting), because the action was continuous and much more complex. At any moment, there was a chance that something could happen that would make a great photo. For a while, I stayed in one spot behind the goal keeper, but later I tried running up and down the sideline with the action. In both cases, I missed a lot of good potential shots, but here’s one that is half-way decent.

Soccer players

As with all action photography, it’s a learning process. I intend to keep at it. The other soccer photos are here.

Swim Photos: It’s “all about the water”

It is a commonplace among photographers that a remarkable photograph is “all about the light.”  That is certainly true for the most part, but I find that when I take photos of swimmers, it is also, to a large extent, “all about the water.” Take a look at the following three photos. The first shows the marvelous swirls that are often churned up in unpredictable, frothy patterns. How it came to be that the swimmer appears to have a halo of water surrounding his head is guesswork. Also note the reflection of that halo and the cap in the water just under his head. Click the photo to see a larger image.

In the second photo, which was taken at a slow shutter speed, we see drops of water flying in different directions as well as a fan-like pattern behind the swimmer. The drama of the swimmer’s butterfly race is seen in his expression and the movement captured in the photo. It is also seen in these water streaks.

In the third photo, the water itself is mostly invisible as the surface as very smooth. But it profoundly affects this image by magnifying the swimmer and refracting the light in various ways as if it were a modernist sculpture of the swimmer, not a literal representation of her. This is also one of those photos where the colors are extremely rich, which was likely due in large part to the use of a polarizing filter on a very bright day. And, finally, the bubbles make the image even more striking.

Summer Swimming

Some pix of Jonathan from the first summer meet this past Saturday (6-16-12). First free, then back, then fly. Everyone had fun (it helps to win), weather was beautiful, and I took about 400 photos. Others can be seen on the Daleview Swimteam web site.





I also experimented a bit with long exposures. See the following image taken at the end of the team’s warm/psych-ups. Pretty cool to see the streams of water.