Ryu: Sucking in the details
Hello. It’s me again.
It’s been a slow month so far as I didn’t get the red carpet treatment for the 1st leg of the semi-final of the Champions League. I’m crossing my fingers to get into the return leg, but then the scores being what they are after the 1st leg, I don’t know if it’s even worth it. But then it beats staying at home and not doing anything. Yes, that includes shooting basketball here in Berlin.
Since our beloved Jewish rodeo captain gave you the “details” assignment for “You Win”, I thought I take up the challenge myself. Since the Alba(tross) Berlin was doing their thing at O2 World, I thought this would be a perfect platform for the assignment + getting better at shooting indoor sports. Because as you all know, I suck at shooting indoor sports.
Capturing details in sports is not very easy. If you’re one of the many who are happy with freezing action and having those pictures proudly presented on the refrigerator door, you’ve got to get yourself ready for some brain washing. Details in sports photography, according to my interpretation is a matter of macro and micro. Macro sports photography is the big stuff. The action, the joy and the sadness, and an image that encompasses everything without being specific. On the other hand, micro sports photography is a drop of sweat, an odd face in the crowd, and an element that stands out from the rest of the image in the frame. Therefore I didn’t really see this assignment as getting as close as possible to the subject or zooming into the subject. My decision was to find something odd or peculiar within the frame and make sure it is obvious enough so anyone can see it.
The shoes. I thought it would be interesting to shoot just shoes and get a shallow enough depth of field to concentrate on just one shoe. I don’t think I did particularly well here, but I just want you to know that was my intention. This was during the warmup before the game and warmup is a regular occurrence, I will try to shoot this composition again. To me, this would not have qualified as a “details” picture if the aperture was at f8 or above as more than a shoe will be in focus. Shoe is better than shoes.
The face. I wanted to see some sweat, but there was none to be found. Which means they probably weren’t seriously warming up. Those lazy professionals. But when they were stretching, I noticed that some of them were making a face. So I tried to get as close as possible to get their expression. What’s important here is not to get too close. Because the closer you get, the only thing you’ll have left will be his face. This is problematic as there is no context within the frame. It is useless unless you are using this photo as part of a series. But if you too shoot too wide, the face will not be evident and will get lost in the chaos of a warm up session. Not easy, aye?
The arms (and hands). We get too caught up in shooting the dude (dudette) with the ball or the person who is the conventional protagonist in your frame. But what if you take a step back and look at it from another perspective? Although this picture like the shoes is less than perfect, I wanted to show that there are things that are happening outside of a conventional shot. Here, I wanted to capture the shoving, pushing, and getting into position whilst getting the ball handler in the background I did fail, but you know what I mean. I’d like to further explore this in my next game alongside my failed foot fetish shots.
Details. Essential if you want to take the next step in sports photography. There is a reason why Getty people get paid more than you do and we’re not talking about their equipment. Those fools know what to look for and they are always looking for details in their shots (or not, depending on which Getty photographer we are talking about). For some of you detail spotting will come easy, but for some this will be an uphill battle. But so be it. It wont’ be fun if we give you easy stuff, would it? You still got about 2 weeks of this, so rack your brains and give us some of them details.
Ryu
*Please Read Below*
Big Lens Fast Shutter is funded solely from the pockets of Ryu Voelkel and Matt Cohen. If you think the information we give you about sports photography is making you a better sports photographer and as a result a well balanced human being, please show us your appreciation by clicking on the “Donate” button and send some of your hard earned dollars/euros/Brixton pounds our way. People who donate will be mentioned on our next show unless you want to remain anonymous. Thank you for supporting us and may the force of sports photography be with you, always.
Ryu: Darling, please compose yourself
As you do, I started my research with Google.
“composition photography rules”
Apparently there are more than 3 of these rules and I’m as surprised as you do. I have no idea if these rules are taught at schools or maybe they only teach you couple of them if you attended a state school. Maybe there are more of these rules because I googled them and we all know that google is cheaper than state schools.
Big thanks to http://www.photographymad.com, http://www.ephotozine.com, http://www.digitalcameraworld.com, http://photoinf.com, and http://www.smashandpeas.com/ for the rules.
Here are the rules in no order of importance:
-Rule of Thirds
-Balance
-Lines
-Framing
-Simplicity
-Symmetry and Patterns
-Viewpoint
-Background
-Depth
-Cropping
-Experimentation
-Fill the frame
-Aspect ratio
-Avoid the middle
-Use diagnosis
-Space to move
-Creative with colours
-Breaking the rules
-Don’t cut off limbs
-Rule of odds
-Avoiding Mergers
As you can see, there are lot of them and some of them are bit repetitive. As you can probably imagine, I don’t know any sports photographer who thinks about these things while shooting. But, this is not to say that you should not study them because by the power of the almighty lord of darkness and of all things sports photography, some of you REALLY need to hit the books when it comes to composition. I’m not going to say who, but you know who you are. Pop quiz at the end of this post.
You have two hands (if you don’t, I’m sorry), you have ten fingers (if you don’t, I’m really sorry), please google them after school.
Since I didn’t goto photography school and my formal photography education comes solely from an elective at Hong Kong International School, I’ll have to show you how to compose. Please thank me because usually I bin all the bad shots from my shoots. But I did think about you guys while I was culling them and therefore I can do this post with a picture aid.
Here is my 8 step program into better compositioned life. Why 8? Because it’s a lucky number in China (I’m Japanese) and there just happened to be 8 photos to describe what went on in my head whilst composing the final shot.
Step 1.
Germany v Kazakhstan. Cold. I spotted a railing next to where the players will be coming out. I thought it was a good idea because I can use the “twist the camera to line up the frame with the line” technique and there was no one else there. It’s also rare that players come down the stairs when they enter the pitch. They usually go up.
Step 2.
I decided that maybe it was a bit too much with all those lines. I also wasn’t too crazy with them background. I also realised that I could use this zoom thing on my lens. So I did and got this German lady coming down the stairs. Better, but not quite. The composition and not the German lady.
Step 3.
I thought the lines were too simple and by flooding the background with things, it would lessen the fact that the background was terrible. For some reason I started to get hot and bothered with the more lines so I zoomed out. Hooray for the zoom lens.
Step 4.
Now I’m back to where I started. I was getting line fever and I wanted to cram in as many as possible. By doing this I was getting unwanted elements on both sides of the frame, so called security people with bright yellow vests. Background still too noisy.
Step 5.
The subs were coming in. Which meant the starting 11 will be coming shortly. Which meant I’m panicking because my composition is terrible. I also realised at this point that I could move in a lot closer to the stairs. The closer I get, the more angle I can use and therefore if I shoot for the sky, I’ll get the lines + dark sky thus eliminating my noisy background problem. Obviously, a moment of genius.
Step 6.
Beautiful simple lines. Beautiful plain background.
Step 7.
Why they have these pesky children come out of the tunnel with the players is beyond me. They ruin everything. They obviously ruined my composition because to get rid of them, I had to shoot at more of an angle, leaving the player’s head and a bit of his shoulder. In hindsight, if I shifted a bit towards the left, I would have had two equal boxes of lines and could have put two players inside each of them. But obviously, I was still in massive panic mode and I wanted to just frame one player in the middle box. Which wasn’t possible because when they come in they are usually tightly packed. The right side of the frame still manage to have crap. Fail.
Step 8.
Low and behold, when I was about to throw in the towel, the manager comes down the stairs and I’m ready for him. 3 lines, plain background, and head towards me. Score.
It’s obvious that I didn’t give you what you wanted. “Where is the rule of the thirds?” you say. “Lines, but what is the significance of the lines?” you say. “You cut of his limbs. Why oh Lord, why?” you say. I understand. What I try to demonstrate has not much to do about following the rules. Rather, imagining how the shot will be shot and how to get that shot. It’s akin to progression of a quarterback after a snap. You check down to the first one, no he’s covered. The second, no he forgot to tie his shoe laces. Third, he’s wide open and BAM! If this analogy makes no sense to you, it’s like a footballer and decision he takes after he gets the ball. Pass, dribble, shoot, or fall down? As you run through your options in your head and with the test shots (let’s all thank digital for this), you will be able to reach the composition you want. With this particular shot, I was adamant in using those rails as lines. Yes, rule number 83. So I tried different angles, different focal length, different number of lines, different background, and other different things to incorporate the lines into the shot.
Therefore the lesson here is not about the rules, but the process you will use in order to apply these rules into your composition. Sports is instinctual. If not instinctual, it is a product of training of repetitive movements which subsequently becomes muscle memory. Same goes for sports photography and composition. The more you shoot with intent, the more you will react rather than having to think about it. The key here is intent. If you’re not thinking about composition, you will never learn composition. Be very aware of how you want to compose and go down the list of things you need to do in order to achieve it. If you have to waste an entire match composing one specific shot, do it. You’ll learn so much from that one much then you would have learned shooting crisp well lit non-artsy photos we all love.
Pop quiz: Name me 5 rules that I gave you in the beginning and bust a rhyme with them.
Ryu
*Please Read Below*
Big Lens Fast Shutter is funded solely from the pockets of Ryu Voelkel and Matt Cohen. If you think the information we give you about sports photography is making you a better sports photographer and as a result a well balanced human being, please show us your appreciation by clicking on the “Donate” button and send some of your hard earned dollars/euros/Brixton pounds our way. People who donate will be mentioned on our next show unless you want to remain anonymous. Thank you for supporting us and may the force of sports photography be with you, always.
Ryu: Be creative or die trying
Dear Chris,
What’s obvious is that people in this Talkboringphotography.co.uk have really bad taste in photos. Sorry, let me rephrase that. MOST people have bad taste in photos, period. I do blame myself and the other media types for this because we just like to feed you garbage day in and day out. We do this because you guys have bad taste in photos. I don’t think cameras on phones help either. Instagram and flickr and other photo sharing sites subtract rather than add to this woe. But they are all here to stay, so what we can do is that we try to discover great photography from present and the past. All you need to do is to have impeccable high brow taste in photography.
BLFS is a response to the appalling state of sports photography. Cookie cutter shots are everywhere and there is no end in sight. The editors want safe pictures because they don’t want to risk it. So, no candy to people who thought BLFS is a place where we can project our daily frustrations on to your poorly composed photos. :) We also advocate a no-nonsense, no-excuse, no-bull shit attitude to sports photos (all 3 are the same, but I wanted to have 3 of them, so there). My dear Jewish friend and I could give two f*cks about why you couldn’t get a shot. Nor do we give a f*ck about “It’s my first time shooting this sport”. We don’t like excuses and neither does your mother. The only thing we care about is the end result and nothing else.
All this “Great photo!”, “Awesome shot!”, “Wow, you should be a pro!”, and “Get out of here Girlfriend! Your shots are soooo amazing! Kisses! We should do lunch soon!” pisses me off and I also hate exclamation points. If the photo is deserving of the accolades, then it deserves all the “girlfriend” included superlatives. But in most cases, it’s a “Let’s jerk each other off! Hooray!” attitude rampant with these type of forums and photography sites. I do blame our society who decided that we should all get participatory medals and it’s not good to hurt someone’s feeling. If your objective is to become a sports photographer, be honest with your critiques, given or taken. Tell them in a constructive manner how that person can improve their shots. Basically, be more like Matt and less like me. :) When someone criticises your photo, say thank you. You don’t have to follow their criticism word for word, but that person has taken the time to comment on your photo and for that you should be grateful.
I do understand that everyone needs some lovin’. I do. I need it so much that I post my pictures on flickr. I LOVE when people tell me positive things about my photos. My heart skips a beat when I see that someone had commented / favourited my photos. Here’s the doom. I kill myself critiquing my photos. I think you already know this, but I cannot stand my photos at times. So much so that I ask my wife and friends to critique them instead because my subjective view just won’t allow me any space to breathe. Therefore although I do love the the love, I only do it because I get no love from myself. My shrink said, I’m fine as long as I have other hobbies that require less self-loathing. I’m still trying to find this “hobby” thing.
Do I enjoy it? Hell no. I would rather tell myself that I’m the best in the world, wash my hands and forget that negativity ever existed. I do it because I want to be the best. I do it because I don’t want to stop innovating. I do it because I know I can get better.
I’m sure my wife will be very happy if I took that kind of approach to keeping the house clean, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon.
To answer your question, there is no definitive divide between the two. I have clients who like my photos and will give me a carte blanche to do what I want to do. These tend to be big guys like Nike and Adidas. This also is very comforting because they are really buying into my style. So for those who say creativity doesn’t sell, they could shove couple up there. But I have clients, mainly magazines, who prefer more conservative approach. So, I give them my conservative sharp well composed photos that we all love. But I have made a career out of shooting differently from others. I mean, why would anyone buy my pictures if they were exactly the same as the ones you can get from Getty, AFP, Reuters, etc…?
But if you are an amateur (semi-pro is an amateur, just so you know) who occasionally sell photos, but you have a day job making billions, then why not go creative every chance you get? Are you that fragile that you need to comfort yourself by taking shots of cars like everyone else? I’m sure your forum mates at Talkcrapphotography.co.uk will poo poo your photos, but we won’t. We will be more impressed that you took some risks to get a once in a lifetime photo than to present us with photos we will all yawn at.
IF you want to become a better photographer, you have come to the right place here in BLFS. We will make you a better photographer even though you will be crying yourself to sleep every night. IF you just want some kumbaya and fake love and ultimately laziness, stay at Talkischeaphotography.co.uk.
Choice is yours.
Ryu
*Please Read Below*
Big Lens Fast Shutter is funded solely from the pockets of Ryu Voelkel and Matt Cohen. If you think the information we give you about sports photography is making you a better sports photographer and as a result a well balanced human being, please show us your appreciation by clicking on the “Donate” button and send some of your hard earned dollars/euros/Brixton pounds our way. People who donate will be mentioned on our next show unless you want to remain anonymous. Thank you for supporting us and may the force of sports photography be with you, always.
Ryu: Sports Reportage (Part Dos)
Greetings fellow sports photographers (spotographers, horrible. Just horrible).
Been back home for a while and almost forgot to post the second part of this post.
Long story short, everything went swimmingly during my stay in DR. We ended up visiting couple more academies, most notably the only Japanese run academy in DR. Only the administrators were Japanese. We were also fortunate to have some time at the beach. Well, only for one hour so dont’ feel too bad for me.
On this final instalment of “How to sports reportage”, I bring you “How not to do a portrait project”. Had I known better, I would have planned it better and I also would have bought the “Lighting for Dummies” series.
1. Planning
I initially wanted to do a series of portraits of the academy players in front of their house. Most of them come from poor neighbourhoods and I thought this was appropriate as I wanted to show that these kids are hoping that one day to play in the US Ayight. This idea was first shot down by my wife and then by my cousin. These two happen to be my in-family art director and technical consultant. They said was that the rags to riches athlete angle has been done as often as Japanese people eat rice. Therefore they suggested I do something different, like shoot them like they were a superstar baseball players. Idiots.
Other ideas were also floated before we came to the superstar angle: Favourite objects and athlete portrait. Things you want to bring to America and athlete portrait. Uniqueness of each athlete portrait. High key portrait. Yup, they all kind of sucked, thanks to me.
We settled on a black background with dramatic lighting. I also went a step further and wanted to go sexy with sweat and no shirt. For some reason I still had in my mind a young athlete training to make it to the Big Show (not to be mistaken by Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann during Sports Center). I wanted to light up just their eyes and leaving the rest dark enough but you can make out the details. Since my knowledge of lighting is as deep as a puddle on the street, I bombarded my poor cousin with technical questions. We settled on grid / snoot to shape the light with a black background made of papers. Cloth was too difficult and my ironing skills were not sufficient enough. As for my cousin, if he hadn’t thought about strangling me by my 17th email on “What is the difference between snoot and a grid?”, I’d say he’s either a saint or he needs professional help.
What I did wrong: Trying to come up with an idea without meeting the subjects. When I do portraits for magazines, I do talk to them or listen in on the interview that the journalist is conducting. This way, you get a feel of what kind of person he/she is and how I want to shoot them. And obviously, I was over my head with this lighting business. A rectangular light on just his eyes? Sometimes you think you are better than you are and of course you’re not.
2. Execution
I should just execute myself after this debacle. Heeding the advice of my always generous cousin, I practiced on my colleague the day before the shoot. I’m sure he also wanted me dead, but then the test went well or at least that’s what I thought.
At the San Diego Padres academy the following day, I rounded up couple of academy players who were willing to participate in my project. In my years of doing sports photography, I had my fair share of shooting portraits of famous athletes. The scary thing is that my knowledge of lighting is akin to my mother asking me how to attach a picture onto an email. But somehow I got the work done and the editors come back to me to do more. I always do try to keep things as simple as possible As you can see from these so-called photos, you now know I’ve got no idea. I really felt terrible for the players because they took their time to work with me and all I could come up were these barfs:
After I bashed my head on the wall and drank my sorrow away with some excellent DR beer (Presidente), I shot an email to my wife and my cousin. My wife, who has the green light to comment on anything to do with my work, went off on me. After, “You know you could do MUCH better” and “Why don’t you ever listen to me?”, she started giving me less shit and more advices. She suggested that I compose it landscape rather than portrait. And please, put the shirt back on. Apparently, she wasn’t feeling it with the nakedness citing that “Baseball players don’t have the body to pull this kind of look”. The rectangular eye light thing went out the door and a grid with duct tape as a single source came waltzing in. Higher shutter speed and lower f stop came hand in hand to help me black out the background.
So I came up with these:
What I did wrong: Although I’m content with these images, I’m reluctant to use them as series of portraits of DR baseball players, because by looking at them, you couldn’t tell. Could I have done something more interesting? Sure, but the problem is me in that I couldn’t come up with anything exciting. More work needs to be done and I need to get better. I do think it’s time I take some classes on lighting so that my cousin won’t have the need to unfriend me on Facebook
I’m planning to goto Japan at the end of the year to shoot some sumotraits. That my friends, should be interesting.
Ryu
Ryu: Sports Reportage (Part Uno)
As I sit in a freezing hotel room wishing for a nice cup of tea, I’m wondering why I’m in DR. Well, not really wondering because I’m here to shoot some baseball
Many of you may already know that after los Americanos, Dominicans are the most common nationality in MLB. Therefore all MLB teams have academies here in DR. It is not out of the realm of possibility that one of the players I shot might become a future hall of famer or get caught with HGH.
This really isn’t a technical post, rather a “how to” on doing a reportage in sports photography. Obviously, it’s not very common to mix reportage and sports, but I’m sure you have seen some in your life. Let it be boxing in Cuba, football in Brazil, or even sumo in Japan, if you want to a reportage in sports, these steps might help you.
1. Angle
Just like writing an article for a magazine, you’ll need an angle. This means you need to have a specific idea as to what you you want to tell with your photos. Let’s say you are going to do a photo essay about your local university basketball team. You might think a story about the basketball team is specific enough. Sadly it isn’t. It is too broad and therefore the story will lack depth. For example, you can add “women’s” and “2013 season”. Now you are narrowing it down and you are making your job much easier. Let’s go further. I’m going to add “freshman” and “making the team”.
University + Basketball + Women’s + 2013 season + Freshman + Making the team = a good angle to work on.
Just to confuse you, for my business trip (don’t tell my wife) in DR, my colleague and I are working to get several different stories published in various media outlets. Therefore I’m doing something completely the opposite in that I’m trying to cover as many bases as possible with my photos. The journalist is working on several stories; DR MLB academies, Julio Franco, baseball in DR, etc. and I need to make sure I can provide photos for all of these stories. But I am also working on a personal portrait project of the academy ball players. This is not specific enough for my taste, but hopefully these images will be complimentary to the other images I will be shooting throughout my stay.
2. Access
You don’t have one, you’re fucked. You will have to go through the proper channels and if you personally don’t have them channels, you’ll need someone who has one. For the basketball photo essay, you’ll need to first contact the school. The principal should be the person you should speak to. Once you get passed her, you’ll most likely be speaking to the head coach of the women’s basketball team. Then once that’s done, you might need a model release (I say this because depending on your situation, you might not need this) for the athletes you will be covering. At this juncture, you probably have been granted access to the teams’ training facilities as well as their gamees. This will obviously be enough if you’re just doing a normal shoot, but let’s don’t forget that you are shooting for a story. You need more. You will need access classes and maybe even their home / dorm. Even if you want to focus on the sports aspect of the story, you’ll need to surround it with their personal lives. Not much, but just enough to flesh them out as a living breathing sports women.
Here in DR, I’m not going to the ball players’ houses, but I did shoot them eating at the cafeteria, sleeping in their dorm rooms, facebooking in the computer room, and just chilling out. Although this has nothing to do with sports, it gives context to the story I am trying to tell.
3. Let’s take some photos
For arguments sake, you have chosen 3 women on the team. Alice, Becky, and Caroline. I’ll leave you to it on how you will be shooting their personal lives, but I’m here to help you shoot sports. Unlike the usual framework of a game, you are shooting them under a different context. Meaning, you’re not interested in them dribbling, shooting, defending, and basically doing basketball stuff. You are more interested them in “making the team”. The trials and tribulations, their journey, the emotions. I’m assuming the bulk of the shots will come from them during training as they try to impress the coach with their skills and passion. Please don’t forget that it’s easier to “show” passion than skills in photography. Happiness, sadness, jubilations, and frustrations. Concentrate on these moments and like the weather on the mountain, these moments will pass very quickly. Be on your toes. There are 2 ways in getting these expressions. 1) Give yourself a set amount of time with each women so that you will get a chance to shoot them equally 2) You wait until you get all the expressions from one woman and then move onto the next one. I wouldn’t be caught without any of them actually playing basketball, but the bulk will need to be photos of them in an emotional state. So even if you got her dunking, it will be even more important to get her howling after a big play.
You’ll also want to take some risks to get shots otherwise impossible under normal circumstances. For example, you won’t be allowed on the court with the women during a game. But what if it is during a drill? Ask the coach. He might say no or he might just give you 5 minutes on the court with them. No longer are you shooting from your usual vantage point of the base / side line. You will be shooting from the athletes’ point of view. Make sure you bring your wide angles and watch out for those loose balls. These are the times you really have to think outside the box. But do make sure you are in very good terms with the coaches as well as the players. The more they trust you, the easier it will be for you to get the shots you want.
I did just that these past days. I cozied up right next to the infielders fielding ground balls. I had no desire to get popped by a ball, so my eyes were max peeled. As soon as the ball was hit towards a player, I ran after him with my camera low to the ground. Scary, but completely different to the usual shots. I’m sure you can’t do this at a MLB spring training, but you sure can get away with it at this level.
That’s it so far. There’s more, but I want to wait until I have some vegetables in my stomach. I wonder how these Dominicans survive without eating vegetables.
Ryu
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Ryu: Goals, Ambitions, and Dreams 2013
Good morning. It’s lunch time and I really want to get some food in, but not processed food as I just watched couple of episodes of “Jamie’s School Dinner” with my wife.
Today marks the 30th day of 2013 and I must admit that I am not feeling it. Sports photography wise, that is. I’m now in my 8th year of shooting sports and some of the things have gotten so repetitive that more often than not, I am on auto-pilot with football matches. This was highlighted this past week when I shot Schalke v Hannover. The match was dull, it was cold, and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. This is why I’m writing this post, because I realised that I need to set some goals. Better yet, these goals will be public making me feel horribly responsible if I cannot keep them. I’ve put them in tiers, Goals, Ambitions, and “A boy can dream”. Goals will be ones I can manage. Ambitions will be slightly more difficult, but still attainable. And a boy can dream even if that boy is a middle aged man.
Because here at BLFS, we have to be able to take it as often as we dish it out to you guys. It’s all good and all telling you that your pictures suck and belongs in the cat litter with your cat’s shit. But what if our pictures suck (mostly not mine, but Matt’s of course) and they belong in the bin with the turkey twizzlers? What I learned last year is that if I am going to be tough to you, I need to be even tougher to myself.
1. Goals
In case you haven’t noticed, my favourite sport is NOT football. Rather it’s basketball. The problem is that so far my basketball images I have shot have been less than stellar. Personally, I think they suck. Therefore, I am going to shoot tons of basketball this season so that if the NBA comes calling, I know I can shoot KD the way KD deserves to be shot. Luckily there is this basketball team in Berlin which allows pretty much anyone with a pulse (and a press card) to get in, so I will be shooting their home games over crappy football matches.
Same will go for hockey and handball. I have realised that I’m not good with indoors sports where there are A) more than 5 people on each team B) people moving very fast C) cheerleaders involved. Luckily again for me, there are teams in Berlin who will serve my purpose.
2. Ambitions
I have some. Enough to get me by and this year, I want to do something similar to what I did last year with my tsunami images. I am off to Dominican Republic for a week in February to shoot multiple projects. This is because I am paying out of my pocket for this trip and I need to make some money so that I come out of it debt free. Although I will be mainly shooting for Japanese magazines, I am quietly thinking about shooting stuff that I can submit to a competition this year. Therefore I will need to do some portraits and definitely not “sportraits”. That is one of the most vile words I have ever seen on screen, on par with “togs”. Goose pimples everywhere now.
I will also be going to Brazil for the Confederations Cup and this is because FIFA won’t let you goto the relatively minor tournament called the World Cup next year in Brazil if you don’t participate fully in FIFA events. I’m looking forward to going to Brazil, but my purpose besides doing what I need to do to appease FIFA (and also shoot the Japanese national team) is to make sure that I don’t spend any money. You might have already figured out, but this trip is also funded by me myself and given my cat less food to eat.
Let this be a lesson to all those aspiring sports photographers out there that if you want to freelance it like it’s 2002, you will need some dough. A lot of it. Enough so that you can travel to Brazil and have enough clients so that you don’t come back from it with more debt than your student loan. Yup, life sucks like that.
3. A boy can dream
I’d like all of you BLFSers to continue to improve so that both Matt and I will feel threatened that some of you might take our jobs away.
If Satan is listening, I’d like to have clients who pay me crazy money to shoot sports like jai alai and sepak takraw.
If it’s not too much of a bother, I’d like BLFS to have big name sponsors so that Matt and I won’t have to worry about feeding our wives.
I also want everyone to love me, but we all know that is impossible.
Happy 2013 BLFSers and let’s shoot some mother fucking sports. :)
Ryu
2012 The Golden Bib™: Vote now, never, or sometimes later
BLFSers,
Who needs the Golden Globe when you have The Golden Bib™?
Thanks to Kenneth Armstrong for naming this prestigious award and now it’s trademarked for no apparent reason. The Golden Bib™ is the highest accolade, award, and recognition one can be bestowed upon in BLFS. It’s akin to being knighted, but slightly better and involves less royalties. The 2012 winners of You Win (our monthly themed competition) have the right to be nominated for this year’s The Golden Bib™. Although Matt and I will be making the ultimate choice of who wins this year’s The Golden Bib™ , your vote will matter for bragging rights, conversation pieces, and just a bit of fun.
I will really appreciate it if you can give a reason why you voted for a specific image. If you are the person who shot one of the nominated images, all you have to say is “Because I shot this image”. You love you. Nothing wrong with that. :)
We will be running this pole for the next month and the 2012 The Golden Bib™ winner will be announced on the March 2013 podcast.
May the odds be ever in your favour or something like that.
*Please Read Below*
Big Lens Fast Shutter is funded solely from the pockets of Ryu Voelkel and Matt Cohen. If you think the information we give you about sports photography is making you a better sports photographer and as a result a well balanced human being, please show us your appreciation by clicking on the “Donate” button and send some of your hard earned dollars/euros/Brixton pounds our way. People who donate will be mentioned on our next show unless you want to remain anonymous. Thank you for supporting us and may the force of sports photography be with you, always.
Ryu: How one becomes a professional
It’s snowing in Berlin and I got this message in the mail a while back:
Im in college right now and I am interested in what you do for a living. I would love to get into sports photography after I graduate. I am wondering how exactly you got to the point where you are now, and are able to go to so many different sports matches and get paid for it. I would love to know what steps I should take after college that will help me get hired as a freelance photographer.
BTW your sports photos are awesome, and I always look forward to seeing my favorite soccer players on your flickr account.
Joel Bierwas
I’m going to do a semi-flow chart to show how simple it is to become a professional sports photographer:
Graduate from university with a psychology major ->
Graduate from graduate school with a MA in forensic psychology ->
Can’t stay in America because can’t get a working visa ->
Don’t want to goto PhD program as it takes too long and also unsure about forensic psychology as a career ->
Devastated as there is no goal in life anymore ->
Go back to Japan ->
Work at a restaurant for 3 months ->
Realise that Germans can work legally in England legally ->
Move to England ->
Work as a business man for 5 years ->
Realise that business man work is not fun ->
Decides that photography is the way to go because it’s fun ->
Decides to become the Japanese James Nachtwey ->
Quit job ->
Start photography career ->
No job for 6 months ->
Run out of savings ->
On the dole ->
Ask parents for money as no money for food ->
Start looking for any job as need to pay rent and keep on eating food ->
Doom and gloom as I’m now 30 years old ->
So far, very easy right?
Visit a friend who is the bureau chief of a Japanese broadsheet in London ->
Tells me to visit his friend who is the head of the photography division of the said broadsheet HQ in Japan ->
Goto Japan ->
Visit the head of the photography division ->
“We need a photographer for the Confederations Cup in Germany” ->
No idea what “Confederations Cup” is ->
“Have you ever shot sports?” ->
Answer: “No” ->
“There is a match tomorrow. Take our gear and show us if you can shoot sports ->
Take gear and shoot a football match ->
Bring photos to the head of the photography division ->
My photos pass the test ->
Goto Germany for 2 weeks and stay at people’s houses because newspaper will not pay for hotel ->
Work like a whore ->
Meet another photographer who asks me if shooting Shunsuke Nakamura who will be playing for Glasgow Celtic for the upcoming season is a possibility ->
Answer: “Yes”
Yup, a cinderella ending.
As for how you can get paid to shoot sports, well, it’s difficult. I am one of the few remaining freelance sports photographer on this planet. Not many left as most of them have decided to join the galactic empire (aka agencies). I sometimes shoot matches I know I might not break even because of the expenses incurred (flights, trains, buses, Quaker Carraiges) for these matches. As a freelance, you also have to pay for your own equipment. So you need about 10,000 EUR to start off with. Off to mortgage your kidneys!
The relatively easy way is to join the reason sports photography is going down the drain, aka agencies. They will give you a monthly wage, insurance, hot meals, equipment, access to the hottest matches in town, and they might let you keep your dignity on a good day. The downside of all this is that you have no say in which match you will shoot. In most cases, you will shoot stuff other than sports. That’s right, you will be there whore, just like everyone else. But then you won’t go hungry, but you might be a fat pig by the end of it all. Your choice.
If you are adamant in joining the rebel alliance, you will need to do a lot of leg work and show a lot of not-really-as-important-as-they-say-they-are people your work. Newspapers, website, magazines, and your most hated enemies. You’ll also need a lot of luck as most places are not hiring, but firing. It would help if you have your own style as most places have enough dull pictures from the agencies to choose from. Showing your work on FB, flickr, and other fun social sites is also a good way to spread the world of Joel. For instance, I got my Nike job when they saw me on flickr. True story.
And most importantly, a whole lotta luck (and love from friends and families and ex lovers).
I have to admit that my way is not the most conventional way to start a career as a freelance sports photographer. Hopefully other people will chime in and give Joel some wisdom on this matter. If you have anymore questions, please feel free to ask.
Ryu
PS Thanks for the compliments on my photos. Obviously, I can’t get enough. :)
Ryu: Top 10, because I only had 10 good pictures this year
Boys and ladies,
I think I’m coming down with something, but I’m not sure why. My cat has been sneezing for the past two days and the I’m suspecting that I have cat flu. In any case, it has to be better than the avian flu, so all those people out there who wanted me gone, sorry. See you in 2013. :)
Matt and I, we did a top 10 at the end of last year and it was interesting to hear what people had to say about it. As photography is a subjective endeavour, you can only gauge how good your pictures truly are if and only if you pay your friends so that they will say something nice about them. I got some people who will do exactly that and I have now managed to create a fairly sub-objective top 10 of 2012.*
*I can neither confirm nor deny money changed hands in selecting these images.
In no particular order:
Berlin ISTAF Long Jump
I have no idea who this person is other than the fact that he wasn’t a spectator who happened to waddle onto the sand pit. I was shooting the long jumpers as they jumped towards me. Since I wanted to get their feet, I pre-focused and prayed to a sports photography god that things will go alright. And luckily, I was a good boy in the first half of 2012 and came out with this image. The focus was a bit in front of the jumpers feet, but then he gave me a great splash of sand.
British Open aka “The Open”
As you may well know, I’m a celebrity junky and can get inexcusably excited over famous athletes. I got to meet and get in the way of Mr. Tiger Woods for the first time this year. Typical Blackpool weather was no where to be found and it was strangely rain free for the duration of the golf days. Instead we had a lot of heavy clouds. Wanted to capture the clouds over Tiger in this image here. The airplane was an accident.
Eric Bompard Ice Dance 1
Before this competition, I was not at all interested in ice dance. It seemed completely dull compared to the pairs, who fling each other across the rink hoping to catch each other by inter locking their teeth and the pinky mid air whilst smiling like a maniac. Two of my colleagues thought I was crazy that I don’t like ice dance and I decided that I should give it another go. For some reason I had a revelation and the rest was history. This one was shot during practice. As we have said many a times here at BLFS, practice is one of the best time to shoot because A) you get to be closer to the athletes B) they do weird stuff. This was the prior as the location I used to get this shot were forbidden during the actual competition.
Eric Bompard Ice Dance 2
Well, when you get bored go slow. Slow like 1 second slow. I shot the entire Free program of the ice dance with 1 second. I got couple good ones and it shows that massive amount of patience (about 2 hours clicking away at 1 second shutter speed) sometimes pays off. 400mm with a 1.4 TC.
Montrose v Rangers
I don’t know if I told you about the match I was supposed to shoot before this match. It was Elgin v Rangers and it was cancelled the day before the match and my colleague and I found out the day of the match. Needless to say, we were on the train to Elgin from Edinburgh when we found out. Nice. So I had to go back and shoot another away match. It wouldn’t have made any sense for me to shoot a Rangers home match as that will be at Ibrox and it will look like any old football match. Had to goto a small, but lovely town called Montrose in Scotland and shoot the Rangers in all of their 4th division glory. It was a fun day and unlike the people of Elgin, the Montrosians were nice people. The weirdest thing was that Rangers fans still called me “Naka” a nickname to Mr. Nakamura of Glasgow Celtic whom I shot for 3 years. If it wasn’t for Mr. Nakamura, I wouldn’t be writing this top 10.
Inter Milan v AC Milan
Yes, the Milano derby. It was a dream of mine to be able to shoot this at some point in my small yet wonderful life. I got the chance last year and must admit the atmosphere was like no other match I’ve been to. Flares galore and at some point I couldn’t see half way past the pitch. Voila.
PSG v Porto
Zlatan. I’ve started harping about him as he got on the PSG bus and I like this shot because I shot it well. As you may have noticed, I don’t really do action shots very well. So much so, I have sort of stopped looking for moments, but everything changed when Zlatan did his thing against England. I’m sure he will do something crazy and I want to be there to capture it this season. This one, I was waiting for him and got him. Sports photography is 99% luck and 1% “you better be damn ready when that luck comes banging on that door”.
European Championship Helsinki
Ah, the land of sauna and Moomin and of course Santa. Apparently Santa shows up on the 24th of December in Germany, but hey, they are Germans. Everything was well until they told me I wasn’t important enough to go infield. Same thing they said at the ISTAF in Berlin. So, I had to look for a place where I can get good images. Found a spot in the stand. If you ever want to play with shadows, do make sure that there is a shadow to play with. Make sure you know where the light is coming from as well. This shot would have been impossible if the sun was coming from the other side. It also will be smart to know if there is a sun at all. A shot like this is relatively easy to take, because you will get to have a lot of chances as they do go around in circles a lot. Most importantly, know your sport and make sure you know what time they happen. Especially in a sport like track and field (aka athletics), things are happening all the time, so just don’t get lost.
World Cup Cycling
At the velodrom in London which might not be there anymore. Most of the minor Olympic sites get torn down because they can build expensive apartments on the same land. It was my first time shooting cycling and it was a lot of fun. Same thing here again that they wouldn’t let me go infield because I didn’t have any experience. LIke it’s so difficult to not get run over by a bike with no brakes… Anyhow, this again was shot during training session. Wanted to go really wide and wanted the rider to come just where I was sitting. With an image like this, you really need to set your focus before the riders come and pray that they will pass by where you focused. You obviously have not seen the throw aways I had trying to get this shot.
NRW Trophy
It was a big year for figure skating for me and I got to goto Dortmund. The only thing I knew in Dortmund was Kagaawa, but now that the boy is gone to Manchester, Dortmund belongee to Kim Yuna for two days. Oh yes, that Borussia Dortmund team isn’t bad either. In any case, Kim was coming back after year and a half, maybe 2 years of doing nothing. I know, life is tough for the 22 year old defending Olympic champion. Although she was far from her Olympic year form, she was head above the rest. I also got goose pimples (chicken bumps) watching her short performance. I slow shuttered once again and wanted to get her as close as possible. I waited right next to her coach knowing she will have to take her jacket off before she got into her… training. Like I said, training time is the best time.
That’s about it from me writing wise in 2012. Thanks for the continued support of BLFS and see you all in 2013, year of the snake. 2012 was my year, but for some reason it was just okay.
Ryu
Ryu: Keeper Rate
Morning from Berlin. It’s not too cold today, even warm. If you start thinking that 1 degrees celsius is warm, you’ve got a problem.
About a week ago, I received this email from Tom:
Hi Ryu,
Following your request for questions in one of recent podcasts thought I’d ask about ‘keep rate’.
I am an amateur using a 400d and a 70-200 L, currently aiming to becoming good enough to set up and sell shots to parents in junior rugby.
I find my keep rate is largely based on whether the image is in focus or not. As such, even though I know that some images are not that exciting or interesting, so little are acceptable that they ‘make the cut’.
Does a pro sports photographer manage to get most shots in focus and consequently have all these to choose from?
Can you delve further into what should be considered whilst deciding whether to keep or not?cheers,
Tom
Note that it was addressed to me and not to Matt. Which means Tom trust me more. Bazinga.
The first question is whether we, the handsome sports photographers, manage to get most of our shots in focus and consequently have all these to choose from. Long story short, the answer is “maybe”.
As a professional sports photographer, you should be able to get a lot of photos in focus. The exceptions will be that you had a busted D4 like I did or didn’t know how to set it up properly to take sports photos. In most cases, whatever sports I take, I know how to get things in focus. This comes from my equipment being very good, I have had lots of experience shooting a particular sports so it’s basically muscle memory, and my overall experience as a sports photographer will usually allow me to get things in focus whatever the sports may be. Now, would I consider photos that are in focus keepers? No, definitely not. But here are scenarios which will force me to keep the shots that I don’t like, but are in focus.
1. If my assignment requires me to get a specific shot.
2. If I think I can use the shot for something in the future.
As for the first one, it’s pretty self explanatory. My client tells me that he wants a picture of player A. I take pictures of him that are in focus and even if I think they are worthy of Training Ground, since having player A in focus is my requirement, I send these shots to the client. This happened recently with Kim Yu-Na the figure skater. I shot her at the NRW Trophy in Dortmund and sent shots of her to several magazines because they were asking for them. I sent ones I personally liked as well as shots I didn’t like, but knew that they would want to see shots like that. The only criteria for the latter was that she was in focus and she was visible from head to toe. Needless to say, almost none of the shots I liked were chosen and all the head to toe-in focus shots were chosen. That’s a life of a sports photographer.
As for the second one, sometimes a client will ask me “Do you have a picture of player B?”, to which I reply “I do”. Now, I know I do have pictures of player B, but there is a possibility that these are photos that are in focus, but not necessarily ones that are considered “good” in my books. I send them and they use them. I cry inside.
I am hoping at this juncture you realise a common theme: I don’t decide what is good, they decide what is good. There isn’t much I can do about this practice as I can’t teach taste and this site is not called “Bad taste Finicky editors”. But what I can do is to limit their opportunity to use crappy photos. This is important because if they use your crappy photo, you name will forever be associated with the crappy photo. For instance, if I am asked to submit photos of player C, I only submit ones that I like. The danger here is that they might not use any of the photos I like, but would have considered photos I didn’t like. But since I didn’t send them, I wouldn’t know. It’s a tough decision to make as you want the money, but you also don’t want to be associated with a crappy photo. Usually money wins. If you want to showcase your good photos, the best solution is to showcase them on your personal website.
The second question: Can you delve further into what should be considered whilst deciding whether to keep or not? I’m assuming he wants to know which ones to keep and which ones go straight to the incinerator. First, when I start culling my photos, I go with the ones that are crap. Like I’ll get a pasting from clone Ryu Voelkel and evil Matt Cohen in Training Ground crap. They maybe out of focus, they may have crap composition, or they may just be crap. Next, I start to look for ones that can be used in every possible scenario. These are the ones that are usually in focus, but not necessarily the ones I like. Finally I start to pick ones that are in focus and the ones I like. These will show up on my flickr feed and end up on my personal website.
There you have it. I hope I answered your question. Tom, if you have any follow up questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
One last thing. My true keeper rate, the ones that are in focus and the ones that I personally like are 5/1000. About 0.5% per match.
Ryu
Ryu: How to shoot Non-Action sports
Sports, action. Action, sports. They go hand in hand like Thelma and Louise, Jordan and Pippen, and Elgin and not so nice people.
For You Win (YW) this month, we told you to show us some awesome Non-Action sports pics. This meant that we are expecting you to give us moments in sports that didn’t come with the following thought bubbles: “Freezing the action. Totally awesome!” and “Peak action. Totally radical!”.
Early 1990′s aside, this is the type of shots you will need to be able to get if you are to become the complete sports photographer that we want you to become. I will give you my take on what these moments are and when and where you can get them.
1. What is non-action?
Seems completely contradictory, doesn’t it? Sports is about action and sports photography is about capturing the action in sports. Even though we love delicious dark Belgian chocolates, on occasion, you’re going to be craving for some salt and vinegar crisps. It’s all about balance and it’s the ying and yang of sports photography. From the top of my head, I can come up with celebrations, conversations, resting, stretching, praying, preparation, locker room, pre and post match, and a moment of silence during a match.
I think you understand what celebration is, but I’m talking about the subdued ones. Not the ones with Tiger pumping, rather an embrace with teammates / coaches, doing the pointing Jesus / Allah stuff, and moments before being engulfed by the teammates.
Conversations is just that. Players signaling or talking with each other. Resting can be during the match as well as during training. Might go well with stretching. Praying could be seen before the match starts or celebrating after a score, but it’s more pointing than praying I guess. Some do it before they enter the pitch. Preparation is before the match that might go with the locker room. If you can get access to shoot in the locker room, you will get some great non-action shots. Stuff that happens before and after the match, starting grid for track and field comes into mind. Last but not least, there are some great opportunities of non-action peppered during a game.
2. When is non-action?
Anytime and anywhere For example, baseball player giving a foul ball to a kid during a game. But if you are not used to shooting these moments, shift all your attention towards searching for these moments as they will go missing when your eyes are glued to that hockey puck bouncing off the walls. What you need to do is to use your peripheral vision to seek out these non-action moments and once you do, react very quickly. You might be able to get a shot of a coach shouting at his players numerous times during a match, but you might not find a player writhing in pain in front of you all that often.
3. How is non-action?
Since non-action is my favorite type of sports photography, this comes a lot easier for me than the traditional action filled sports photos. My favorite time to get it done is pre match. When the athletes take on the pitch for their warm-ups, they tend to be a bit more relaxed. Concentrate on interactions between players as well as some alone time as they tie their shoe laces, stretch, and pick their noses. Once the game starts, I tend to look for gaps and pauses during the match. Using the rosin bag, coach showing players clipboard stuff, moments before free kicks, picking up a ball, re-tieing the obi, and etc… But same as above and that if you are not used to shooting these images, you have to concentrate very hard. If you are doing it for the first time, go 30:70. 30% action, 70% non-action. This is not the number of shots you are going to take rather, time and energy spent on each type of these shots. I think Matt and I have told you in the past that there is no point shooting athletes doing the same thing over and over and over as there will be no difference from pitcher in the 1st inning and the 5th inning. After the match, jubilation and defeat are common place, but my favourite is the moment when they are just about to get back into the tunnel and back into their locker rooms. Depending how close you can get, you might get sweat, dirt, and pieces of skin from the opponent on their faces as well as rising steam if you are outside.
I have posted some of the non-action shots I have taken this past month. Motion blur might not be used all that often, but non-action shots, I believe, are as essential as its action packed brother in law with emotional problems.
Speaking of emotional problems and families… I shouldn’t go there as Christmas is way too close.
Ryu
PS As always, please let us know what you want us to talk about and we will make sure to blend that into our future podcasts and blog posts. Unless Matt’s mother vetoes it, but that’s another story altogether.
Ryu: Nikon D4, review by a sports photographer (part 2)
Hello and welcome back, me. I am currently on the train from Elgin back to Glasgow. My journalist friend and I were supposed to cover the Elgin v Rangers match, but for reason only a Elgin City FC’s gold member can explain, they called the whole thing off. But life must go on and I wanted to do the round 2 of my Nikon D4 review.
It’s been about 6 months since my initial review of the D4. It would not have been fair to you had I shot for another month and gave you a very shallow not-in-depth-at-all 2nd review So I waited until the time was right and I believe the time has come.
The most infuriating feature (problem?) of the D4 was its focus. Not good when you are shooting something that cannot be recreated. Perhaps this is not a big deal for the wedding photographers out there (not dissing them specifically as I do shoot weddings myself quite often), but the AF system is most important feature in a sports photographer’s camera.
Nikon has “upgraded” their AF on the D4 from the ones used in the D3 and the D3s. This “upgrade” didn’t have its intended effect on making my life easier. In fact my life ended in shambles and I begged the Nikon service person in the UK to exchange my D4 for a D3s. Yes, that bad.
Let’s rewind a bit here. Since my first review of the Nikon D4, I felt that the AF didn’t work as well as the one from my D3. I know I’m being very scientific and technical in saying that it “just didn’t feel right”, but that’s what it was. It was different. I would have gladly taken this “different” if there was an improvement. But sadly, there was none.
I activate my AF with the AF-ON button and not with the shutter release. This is has been my style since the D2X. Yes, we go while back, Nikon and I. With the D4, I would start the focusing by pressing the AF-ON button and one of the sensors will lock onto the subject and I fire away. At least that is what I wanted it to do. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. With the D4, if I shot 6 frames, the 1st and the last will be in focus and the 4 between will be slightly out of focus. This happened to subjects moving east west (left and right in the frame) and north south (towards and away from me). Luckily, I was in touch with the Nikon technician in the UK and he recommended that I do the following:
- Change the max per second frame from 11 to 10
- Fiddle with the AF priority.
Once I changed the max frames per second down to 10, there was a marked difference on the AF accuracy. It acquired focus a lot faster. But the problem still remained that it won’t lock on to the subject and I was left with gigabytes of useless photos.
Then I changed the AF priority. I have no idea if you have this function on the non single digit D Nikon cameras, but you can set the focus priority for specific focus style (AF-C and AF-S). With AF-C, the camera will continue to acquire focus as long as you hold down the AF-ON button.
On the D3 and the D3s, these were the options.
-Release priority
-Focus priority
Release priority means that once you hit the shutter release it will start firing and then attempt to acquire focus later. Focus priority is the exact opposite in that once you hit the shutter release, it won’t start firing until it had acquired focus.
On the D4, the options have expanded:
-Release priority
-Focus+Release
-Release+Focus
-Focus priority
To be honestly with you, I have no idea what the “+” do, but I did try all these focusing methods and things didn’t improve much. At this juncture, I have resigned to the fact that I have to be the one who will need to readjust to the D4, because obviously I’m the one who’s doing something wrong.
Then came “the day I wanted to go home and put all my Nikon gears on ebay”. Basically, I missed a very big shot because of this crap AF system.
On the same day, I wrote a panicky email to the Nikon engineer in the UK telling him that I have had enough. That this is unacceptable from a 5000 Euro camera and that I want to trade this crap for a D3s. For those who don’t know me well, I shoot sports to put food on the table and this is a matter of life and death.
I received a prompt reply from him and he was very apologetic. He recommended that I should visit the NPS in Berlin to get my cameras (both cameras have the same problem) looked at. The next day, I was at Berlin NPS spilling my guts. I even brought the photos as proof that there is something wrong with my D4.
Since I am not a hypochondriac when it comes to technology, bringing my cameras to NPS was a big deal for me. I have NEVER in the past gone to NPS, not having tried every conceivable solution under the sun for the problem I had. In most cases, I was the problem and not the camera.
NPS Berlin was very helpful and I had the NPS HQ in Dusseldorf on the phone in matter of minutes. They arranged for me 2 loaner D4 and a loaner 70-200 2.8. Since the “f-you Nikon” shots I took with the D4 was attached to my 70-200 2.8, they wanted to check that out as well.
I brought the loaner cameras and the lens home, packed my bag and left for Amsterdam to shoot Netherlands v Germany. By this time, another photographer informed me that the dynamic field points should be set at 9 and not 21 or 51. Low and behold, the loaner cameras performed much better at the football match. So much so that I had tears in my eyes. I didn’t, but I felt as if I had some human emotions left inside me.
Improvements, yes. As good as the D3, no. Came back home and the following day I was in Paris for the Eric Bompard Trophy. There a fellow Nikon photographer told me that I should set the shutter priority to Release priority and NOT Focus + Release or Release + Focus. He also advised me that the AF lock on should be disabled.
Well, that was it. If this didn’t work, I would have gone home and called Canon that I will trade in my entire fleet for the Canon 1Dx and the white lens. As we all love a happy ending, these setting worked like a charm. Focus acquiring speed was faster than the D3 and it locked on without the help of focus lock on. All in all, a success.
The next day, NPS HQ in Dusseldorf wrote me an email to set the camera on all the settings I mentioned before. The one setting they recommended was that I increase the length of the standby mode from the default 6 seconds to 5 minutes. This is to help the camera be ready to shoot right away compared to having to wake up from a deep slumber.
She told me that there is even a link for these settings and then some, which I have never heard of until now. http://nps.nikonimaging.com/technical_solutions/d4_tips/
Just to summarize, these are the settings you will need to put your D4 if you are shooting sports.
1. AF
-AF-C
-9 dynamic points
-Custom settings menu: Aa1: Release priority
-Custom settings menu: Aa3: Disable focus tracking with lock-on.
-Custom settings menu: Aa7: 51 focus points
2. Standby Time
- Custom settings menu:Cc2: Standby timer 5 minutes.
3. Shooting Speed
- Custom settings menu: Dd2: 10 frames per second.
4. Miscellaneous
- Set lens focus to A/M and not M/A
I do applaud Nikon for taking care of me, but I do not applaud them for not informing us pros how the AF system has changed from the D3 series. I would be hard pressed to acknowledge that they expected us to figure these things out on our own. If they had all these information when these camera went on sale, how could they not include these information in the user manual? If they found out later that the D4′s new AF needs to be set up differently to the D3 series in order to shoot sports, why didn’t they inform us about it via mail?
These are very expensive tools. We buy them for different reasons, but we all expect that these perform better than their predecessor. I sincerely do hope that Nikon learned from this mistaken and that they will be much more thorough in providing photographers with appropriate information.
As for my D4, they are in the capable hands of the Nikon engineers in NPS HQ Dusseldorf as we speak and should hopefully be back soon. Although, I wouldn’t mind keeping my loaner D4 as these are getting it done. The niggling problem I have is that my D4 didn’t work as well as the loaner D4 before I made the final setting changes with the Release priority and the focus lock on. Therefore, I still believe that there is a problem or problems with my D4.
Coming up: D4, misrepresented or misunderstood?
Ryu
Four + 1: Jonathan Moscrop
A belated happy 7 to Four+1. It’s been a while, but it’s still alive and when we do find interesting sports photographers, I will post them here. Jonathan Moscrop is a sports photographer based in Torino, Italy. He’s a what we say in the business (?) an official photographer for Juventus FC. So he basically gets to goto all the matches and have great access. He’s also an Englishman living in Italy. Yes, that is a conflict of interest. :)
1. How did you start shooting sports photography and what is your bread and butter sport?
I started a college course in photography and as a project I wanted to shoot football, through the college an accreditation was requested to cover a first division match at my local team Grimsby Town, I had always loved football….combining my growing passion for photography and love of the game I guess this was as near to being a footballer I would ever get….I still continue to cover football now.
2. What is something that you think is really obvious now that took you a long time to get?
Everything!!!
There is nothing really that springs to mind….i guess the best I can say is anticipating things and also having the shot that tells the story or something close to….whereas at the beginning I was looking more for great photos, now working for the agency their requirements are different, knowing as the game unfolds what images may be useful other than the obvious goals and celebrations helps, a lot of the images that are used can be basic relative to the events of the game, often not particularly demanding to achieve or understand!
3. Funniest / Strangest story from one of your shoots?
I was once attacked by a police dog in Sardinia, was treated in an ambulance pitchside then shot the game, flew home and went to the nearest hospital and had a tetanus injection, I sued the police following the officer’s comment that i should have been more careful…..he was busy chatting with a colleague, the dog was loose and it’s muzzle was attached to the officer’s belt, I was calmly making my way to take a position on the goaline!!
4. Advices to the kids (or a mid life crisis sufferer) who are aspiring to become a sports photographer?
Don’t do it!!by all means become a photographer, but i would choose sports again from an economic point of view, I am living and working in a country where I believe there are too many “sports photographers” above all football….that use their camera as a way of obtaining a pass to enter the stadiums and see the games. Also I believe that the editorial market is suffering greatly from the recession but also because there are too many people whom by purchasing a digital camera and no longer having to process and develop films it has become much easier to do and subsequently “giving” their work away just for a byline, it seems that there are also very few newspaper picture editors, therefore perhaps people who do not understand the content of a photograph or the significance……I know it’s a very dim view but it’s what I honestly believe!
+1 As an Englishman living in Italy, how and who will you and your family support during the Euro 2012?
I will obviously support England, there will be no fighting in my household, EVERYONE will be England fans until the country’s participation continues, they may support Italy buy only until the two countries meet at which time they will once again become full time England fans….anyone not wanting to abide may leave the house until the tournament is finished!!!!
Ryu: The art of defending
Good day everyone.
I just came back from Arsenal v Southampton shoot. It was a massacre of the finest quality. Not often do we get to see a match that you’re hoping they would have consider employing some kind of a mercy rule. My assignment was to shoot Maya Yoshida, a newly acquired defender for Southampton. The problem is that first of all he started on the bench and second of all, he is a defender.
In sports photography, it is easiest to shoot the athletes who are coming towards you. Simply offense rules. The pictures you get will be dynamic and full of pizzaz (wow). Chicks love offense and so do I. But what if you need to get shots of the other end of the spectrum? Rarely we put a focus on defending, because let’s be honest here, it’s super unsexy. Maybe in American football where they pound their chest like a cave man after a sack, but in most cases, it’s the least sought after image unless it’s a game changing play. And trust me, it doesn’t happen that often.
I thought I share what went through my head and what devious plan I eventually came up with. Please, hold onto your applauses as I know you are jealous of my god fearing drawing ability.
Here is the diagram showing the player in blue and where I would have liked to have positioned myself in red. Yoshida was one of the two centre backs and he was predominantly on the left side. Sitting along the left touchline would have given me the best position. Since I needed shots with his face on it, I would have 3 out of 4 possible directions covered in this position. I can get the side of his face as he runs towards the goal and the same as he runs away from the goal. And I can get his face full-on as he runs towards me. Please, call me a genius.
As you can imagine, genius ideas such as this only works when they give you the access. I was told that only official photographers were allowed on the touchline. Therefore for the 1st half, I sat along the goal line and as you can see from the diagram, I sat perpendicular to the edge of the penalty box. For some reason unbeknownst to me, I thought sitting closer to the goal will allow me to get more shots of his face. Alas I was wrong. Again from my stupendous diagram, my position limited me to only shoot him and his beautiful face if he was to the right of where I was sitting. If he was playing to the left of me, 98% of the time me and his back would be BFF for 45 minutes. Not good and the photos weren’t all that hot. But as a back fetishists, I got lots of pictures of his back. But still, I got no Yoshida face love.
I might be stupid, but I ain’t no dummy. The atrocious defending from Southampton that day not withstanding, I decided to move away from the goal, thus increasing my chance of getting the shot I want. There is a very good reason for my move because as a centre back, Yoshida will rarely venture off to the left touchline. I ended up getting more good shots of him in the 2nd half than I did in the 1st half.
To summarize, please look at this final beautiful diagram. Please also be aware that this is specifically for shooting centre backs and not side/wing backs. That’s another lesson all in itself. From where I was shooting that day, I got a lot of back and side photos of him looking to the right. If you ever played football or watched football, it is a very big NO NO to turn your back away from your own goal and run towards your own goal. That means you have been beaten and you are chasing the ball and the opposition player. You might see this happen more at lower level football, but it rarely happens at top flight professional level. Therefore, I gave up on trying to risk everything to get that shot as it could happen maybe once during a match. I also got shots of him looking to the right. As his defending zone was in general to the right of where I was sitting, this is obvious.
Rare were the ones him facing me. As I have noted in the previous paragraph, a centre back facing me at the position where I was sitting is scarce. Also looking to the left is a rarity as that will only likely to happen during a corner kick / free kick from the left.
When shooting a specific player or element, you need to play the numbers game. I hate to break it to you, but you cannot be everywhere at once. I think Matt can as he did clone himself a while back, but we all can’t afford to clone ourselves like he does. Your shooting position will determine the likelihood of getting that shot. For example, according to your calculation, shooting at point A will yield 70% success rate. Then you will just have to forget about point B, C, and the others. If things happen at other points, you will just have to shrug your shoulders like a Parisienne and walk away. Like I said, you can’t be everywhere at once.
On the flip side, you could go to point B which will only yield 30% success rate, but within that 30% there could be a Pulitzer. Therefore I cannot say this is better than that because it all depends on your assignment and what you want out of that specific match. But as you can see from what I’ve done, I chose point A and the 70%. Was it the right decision? Yes. Would you do it again for a similar assignment? Yes, yes, and no. Maybe I will shoot at point A for 90% of the match and move to point B for the remaining 10%. Maybe if I already got the shots I wanted in the 1st half, I’ll move to point B and hope for the best.
The key here is to know want to shoot and also the sport that you are shooting. If I was told to do the same thing for rugby, my success rate will be very low because I don’t know why they do that weird throw-in thing and I don’t get that scrum thing either. Last, but not least, hopefully this post will help remind you of how good a free hand drawer I am. :)
Ryu
BLFS Movie Night: Panning part 1
Well, we did it.
We are now a proud owner of a video tutorial series. Yes.
This a direct response to all those people who have been moaning to us about panning in sports photography. Tsutomu Takasu who is a sports photographer based in Japan was kind enough to give us a hand in how to pan.
Please remind yourself that this is our very first attempt and it is also Tsutomu’s very first attempt at video. So, it’s a really rough. The sound is so-so and we could have him relax a bit. He could also have gotten a haircut.
Unfortunately, it is not embedded into this post as it means we will have to give more money to WordPress. They’ve taken enough, so until we are filthy rich, the videos will be uploaded onto YouTube.
Please and I mean, PLEASE let us know what you think about the video. It’s like our Training Ground, so let it rip. We would also love to know if you have a desperate need for us to do another tutorial in other aspects of sports photography.
As for panning we are planning to do a part 2 in the near future. If you have any specific questions or comments regarding it, please leave them on this blog post and not on YouTube. It’s easier that way.
Next time, we hope to have better sound, better haircut and maybe even Enya in the background.
Enjoy.
BLFS Movie Night: Panning Part 1
Ryu: Sadly, more golf
Hello friends.
We actually had plans for some awesome blog posts between the recent podcasts, but it fell through. It should happen, but it won’t happen right away as we expected. Cryptic as this may sound, I just want to take this place to apologise for the lack of blog posts. Please keep on loving us.
I just came back from 2 weeks of shooting golf. The Open Championship and Evian Masters. Now that I have shot 3 golf tournaments, I am certain that golf is not a sport. If golf is a sport, then pole dancing is sports reserved for the goddesses. Walking around and hitting a ball and walking around and hitting a ball is not a sport. The elements? The 4 rounds 72 holes? If a 60 years old can play better than a 25 years old, it should not be considered a sport. (Minor update: Moments after I wrote this post, my wife said that golf is a “precision sport” much like darts, pool, and so forth. Sadly, she makes sense) Rants aside (phew), if you are interested in shooting golf, here are some things I learned. Hardly a golf expert’s opinion, but it should help you a bit.
1. Walk
Lazy asses should be on their lazy asses sitting in front of the TV and not be shooting any golf. This is the only kind of sports photography that you the photographer needs more athletic ability than your subject. You will be walking with all your equipment, at breakneck speed for the next 4 days following the golfers throughout the course. Now, step away and put those stilettos back onto the shelf.
2. Waterproof
Jackets, shoes, and most importantly your cameras raincoats. Make sure everything is waterproof. Also make sure that you bring clothes you can easily take off and on depending on the temperature and the weather.
3. Amateurs
Don’t ever think of shooting amateur golf unless you have a death wish. Just so you know what I’m talking about, imagine a golf ball. It is hard and white and has diples. Then imagine it catapulting off 5 metres away from you, going straight through your lens and into your right eye socket. Accuracy are reserved for the pros. Amateurs are amateurs for a reason and this is one sport I recommend that you don’t shoo them.
4. Right / Left
I hope you know which one is which, because my wife doesn’t (true story). If you are shooting a golfer who is right handed, which side do you want to be? If you are facing the golfer, it will be to your left. If you are on positioned to your right, you get a shot full of ass. This is not a rule, rather something you should know as a discerning adult sports photographer.
5. Again
So you messed up your right from your left. You’re an idiot, but unlike any other sport, in golf you get multiple chances to get it right. For example, if you are working on a specific style or look with a golfer at the tee and you happen to mess up the composition, you only have to look at the green and see that there are more golfers on your way.
6. Background
Probably the most important in shooting golf. You have to be mindful of the surrounding and what background you want to use. Unlike most other sports where you are limited to one position, you can literally pick any position in golf. Almost everywhere unless it involves Tiger Woods.
7. Tee
No, I didn’t misspell it. Every morning, they will give you fresh tee times. If you are hunting for a specific player, you better hold onto that piece of paper for dear life unless you have a photographic memory.
8. Map
Golf courses are unnecessarily big. They brainwash you into thinking that walking long distance makes you think it’s a sport. If you don’t own the course or were brought up on it, it’s best you take a map of the course. You could get a compass to go with it, but then you’re being silly.
9. High / Low
We preach going low, but depending on the topography of the course, if you go low the only think you’ll be able to see is the ponytail on the golfer’s head. Be conscious how high or low you are when composing a shot.
10. Metering
Things change a lot throughout the day when you’re having a great time shooting golf. Clouds, advertisement boards, golf wear, and foliage can throw your metering into a tizzy. Tizzy, yes, tizzy. You shoot digital for a reason. Check your exposure carefully before every shot.
11. Leaderboard
In some sophisticated tournaments, they have apps for that. You will be able to roam around the course and the app will tell you in real time who is where and who is leading the pack. Definitely a must on the final day of the tournament. If you don’t have a smart phone and can’t get apps, ask someone with a radio. They will at least be able to tell you who’s in the lead and maybe they will give you a candy.
12. Ball
It’s small and it’s white. I’ll see it when it’s hit, but when it’s in the air against the white clouds, it may very well be invisible. For some reason people around me seem to know exactly where the ball is. In most cases, you need to know where the ball lands to plan your next shot, so it’s best you find out as soon as possible where the balls been hit. If you don’t see it, ask someone who looks he’s been up and down.
13. Tiger
Last week, I shot the Open Championship. It was in England which meant that the weather was lousy. It also meant that Tiger Woods was, as we say in my neighbourhood, “in da house”. The MJ of golf, the one and only. Rockstar adulterer. Love him. So I wanted to spend as much time as and the moment came when he hit the approach off the green and into the rough. It’s amazing what 3 tournaments will do to your golf lingo. I got myself right behind the ball so that I can shoot Tiger hit the ball directly behind him with a wide angle lens. Slowly but surely, Tiger approached where I was sitting. For some reason, there wasn’t a photographer anywhere near me. Lucky me, lazy bastards, I thought. As soon as he saw where the ball was, he said:
“Will you please move away from the ball?”
I looked around and there was no one but me in the general direction of his directive. My mind went blank for a brief moment and I scurried away to the right as soon as possible.
The moral of the story is that unlike any other sport, there are lots of rules when it comes to shooting golf. Be mindful of the gallery, other photographers, and the players. They are more important than you, always.
Enjoy golf.
Ryu
Euro 2012: Spain v Italy: The finale
Well, that’s it. Just want to thank Mutsu for his cooperation and congratulate Spain for yet another win.
Honestly, when the hell are they going to lose?
“Last day of the tournament, Spain v Italy. These teams played on the first day of the tournament and drew 1-1, but in the final Spain won in a convincing fashion.
Since I am accredited by the Spanish football federation, my priority group was 1 and I was the 23rd person to pick my seat. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get the last remaining seats near the main stand and therefore could not get the most important goal celebration of the match.
Just want to thank BLFS for giving me the opportunity to post my pictures here and want to thank you all for looking at them throughout the tournament. Signing off from Kiev at 4:30AM and it’s breaking dawn.”
Euro 2012: Italy v Germany
I’m not in a good mood and Mutsu is trying to alleviate my pain.
He’s trying.
“Well, the Germans. I think their youth worked against them last night. Italy played and won like a resourceful veteran team.
I arrived at 6:30AM in Warsaw airport. When I left Donetsk, I was in shorts and t-shirts, but after arriving in Warsaw I had to change into something warmer. We had 10 degrees of difference in temperature.
There were quite a lot of German supporters at the airport, but once I got to the stadium, there weren’t that many. But they were still a lot more of them than the Italians. Naturally, most of the cheers were for Germany at the start of the match, but as the it progressed, the locals cheered on for the Italians.
I’m sure the shift in the cheering had nothing to do with it, but Germany didn’t play like themselves and let the match get away. Will these young Germans peek come Brazil 2014?
Buffon was as crafty as ever. For people who are fans of goalkeepers, this was a treat of a match. I’m going back to Kiev tomorrow and will prepare for the final on Sunday.”
Euro 2012: Spain v Portugal
Semi-final, Spain v Portugal and Mutsu is back. I honestly want to rain on his Spanish parade, but then Mutsu will be allowed on the pitch as long as Spain keeps on winning. This is because he got his accreditation through the Spanish FA. So we should all be happy for Spain today.
“The train I took departed Kiev at 13:20 PM, but it was delayed by 1 and 1/2 hours. The match started at 21:45 PM, therefore I had plenty of time, but in any case it got me a bit nervous.
But what made me even more nervous was this match. When Ronaldo got his chance on the counter attack, I thought that was it. But he missed and I didn’t think we (Spain) would lose on a penalty shoot out. Taking pictures of the penalty shoot out is fine by me, but I can’t imagine what the players are going through during it.
I will be taking the 4:50 AM flight to Warsaw. Who will Spain meet in the final, Germany or Italy?”
What the fuck is he talking about. Of course it’s Germany.
-Ryu
Euro 2012: Italy v England
And England win again on penalties. Mutsu was there to capture England and their consistent performance in international tournaments.
“After last night’s match between Spain and France, I stayed up all night waiting for my flight to Kiev. Arrived at the hotel at 8:30AM and went straight to bed. When I woke up, it was one hour before the photographer’s ticket distribution at the stadium. I somehow manages to arrive on time, but I ended up with a priority category group 1 which meant I was at the very back of the queue. Unfortunately, I ended up shooting from the sidelines.
The match itself was akin to shooting 2 middle of the pack La Liga teams. During the penalty shootouts, my eyes tend to go to the goalkeepers than the kickers. As they take turn defending the goal, you can see them shaking hands. I don’t know if they are wishing each other good luck or bad ones, but one thing for sure is that they live in a world that is different from that of the field players.
The last shot is from the media centre in Kiev. As one of the sponsors of the tournament, we have a MacDonald Cafe. But they are not free and they are more expensive than the ones in town. I haven’t used it unless I’m really desperate for food.”
Euro 2012: Spain v France
Mutsu is relieved that Spain won. He was so happy that he provided us with some behind the scenes shot as well.
“3rd match of the Quarterfinal, Spain v France. I arrived in Donetsk from Gdansk via Munich and it was hot. Yesterday in Gdansk the temperature was around 20 degrees, but in Donetsk it was in the 30s.
Spain took an early lead from Xabi Alonso’s header and they dominated the 1st half. But in the 2nd half, they allowed France to create some chances. Their lacklustre performance may have been a byproduct of setting up a base camp in Gdansk where the temperature was lot cooler than in Donetsk. Penalty at end of regulations sealed the win for Spain and they will be playing in Donetsk against Portugal next week.
By the way, it was my first time in Ukraine. I moved around in a taxi and I have no idea what is what here. Cyrillic letters are hurting my eyes. I’m off to Kiev at 5AM tomorrow morning.”
- Mascot and the photographer working behind the boards.
- Photographers getting ready to get the best position for the group shot. If you go beyond the allowed “area”, you are penalised.
- Setting up the remote behind the goal. I don’t use them. If your camera gets destroyed by a shot on goal, well, tough luck.
- You are allocated a seat before the match, but you can choose which seat you want. But if your seat is “bad”, it looks like this. Right TV camera, left additional referee.
Euro 2012: Germany v Greece
Mutsu was not much surprised with the Germany win. He also apologises for writing just about the match.
“Quarterfinal day 2, having spent the night (and part of the early morning) at the Warsaw Central station, I took the first train out to Gdansk. At the Gdansk station, the small number of blue and white jerseyes were were overpowered by the Germans desperately looking for extra tickets. A microcosm of the current EU economic status.
As for the match, Germany dominated the first half but only mustered a goal going into halftime. I was on the opposite end for Samaras’s equaliser, but the silence which took over the German supporters right after the goal was somewhat satisfying. After that, difference in talent was too much for the Greeks and the Germans won 4-2. Their next opponent will be either Italy or England. Which team will be able to fly from Warsaw to Kiev next week…”
Euro 2012: Czech Republic v Portugal
Knockout phase has begun and Mutsu was there to shoot Czech Republic v Portugal. By the way, no Ronaldo pictures. Sorry.
“Well, I didn’t do too well today. There were about 130 photographers there today and most of them were there to shoot Cristiano Ronaldo. Since you are allocated a seat before the match starts, you only have 45 minutes to shoot him. But some people found ways to shoot him both halves.
1st half was about even, but Portugal were on the offensive in the 2nd half. Overall, it wasn’t a very exciting match. Ronaldo got the game winner and Portugal will now go on to play the winner of the Spain v France match. Obviously, I’d like Spain to come through. :)
Tonight, I will spend a night at Warsaw Central station and in the morning I will take the first train out to Gdansk. Germany v Greece. It will be a battle of the top and the bottom of EU economy.”
