Sports photography

I said in an earlier blog that I would write about sports photography and the time is now.

I’ve been fortunate to be able to combine my life-long passion for sports with both my profession and my hobbies. I’ve been able to gain access to events that might be otherwise difficult to photograph because I’ve been in and around the sports business for my entire adult life. The beginning sports photog needs to understand that the first order of business is to learn the photographic process, then worry about press passes.

So let’s get to it. You’ll need a single lens reflex (SLR) camera and a telephoto lens. It’s pretty easy to find a 70-200 millimeter or 80-200 mm lens in the used section of your local camera store and that’s a good place to start. You’ll want to find a lens with aperture 2.8 capability, making this a ‘fast’ lens that works better in lower light situations than lenses with bigger aperture numbers (such as 3.5).

You’ll need to match your budget to the equipment you start with and there is no need to rush out and buy every expensive piece of equipment out there. Pick up what you need as you learn how to use what you already have. Then you know better what you need to buy next. For example, you’ll have to buy a monopod sooner or later. But hold off on the expense until you know the time has come.

Because of the size of the field, softball and little league baseball match well with the camera and lens combo I mentioned above. Other outside sports, shot in daytime conditions, are also possible. Youth sports offer excellent opportunities, once you have permission to shoot the event. Indoor sports are a very different matter. There are situations where flash photography is not allowed and they are where the fast lenses mentioned above are important.

I don’t want to delve too deeply into the technical area here because every camera and lens combination requires a slightly different approach. Suffice is to say that there is no substitute for going out and using your camera. Get an understanding of what settings you need to get the best performance from your equipment.

Minor league football is all over the country and the game
offers opportunities for photographers. By the way, I
named this one, 'No holding called.'

There are many, many ways to shoot the various sports. As you assemble more equipment, you’ll look for new ways to use said equipment. Below are a few ideas I think will work for the beginner with the equipment suggested above.

Football: First thing you must do is speak briefly with the referees on your side of the field before the game. Let them know you understand about the three-foot rule along the sideline and that you will not be in their way. The rule establishes that you cannot stand within three feet of the sideline, as that is where the referee runs. It’s a safety thing, both for you and the refs. Usually, you are restricted to be outside the team zone along the sideline, meaning you have to be between the 25 yard line and the goal line. You are usually allowed to circle behind the team area to change positions when the ball moves toward the allowable area on the other end of the field. If you are covering the game itself and not a specific team, I’d recommend positioning yourself 3-4 yards ahead of the line of scrimmage and discipline yourself not to squeeze the trigger on any play moving the far side of the field. Running plays to your side, especially off tackle plays or sweeps, are in your wheel house. Short passes to your side are also within range. For goal line plays, try to get behind the end zone and try to lineup directly in front of the center. Idea: Go on line and try to find a minor league team in your area and contact them about photographing their games. Don’t forget that most high schools have junior varsity teams and might be willing to have you out there.

This shot made the cover of a
municipal recreation department's
magazine.

Softball: Make sure you have the proper permissions before you try to work a softball game. Be aware of foul balls. Understand the game before you think about stepping out there. Having said that, I always spend the first inning, the entire first inning, behind the fence that is behind the plate. I want lots of images of the starting pitchers because you never know when someone might throw a no-hitter or a perfect game. Even if all the starting pitcher does is get credit as the winning pitcher, you’ll have an image you might be able to pedal to a local newspaper or website. After that, your positioning depends upon what the umpire determines that photographer area to be. From the right side of the infield, watch for the third baseman, shortstop or second baseball to field a ground ball. Your 200 mm lens should have enough reach to capture an image of the infielder fielding and throwing the ball. You’ll probably be working slightly down the baseline from third or first base and outfield plays should be reachable as well. Watch the sun! Choose your side of the field according to where the sun is closest to your back. Safety: DO NOT stand directly behind first or third base unless you are behind a fence.

Baseball: Much the same as softball, but if you have the equipment suggested above, you really do not have enough lens to properly shoot baseball, as the field is so much larger than a softball field. Having said that, if the backstop is not too far behind home plate, you might be able to photograph the pitchers and plays at home plate. From up the baseline, you should be able to get runners coming to first or third base.

Junior college basketball, using the
bounce-off-the-floor flash technique.

Basketball: In most cases, you’ll need a flash to shoot basketball. The lighting systems in most high school and junior college gymnasiums do not typically have enough candle power to allow a photog to capture nice images without a flash. As basketball is such a vertical game, I typically turn my camera sideways and then twist my flash to point at a 45-degree angle toward the floor. This creates a bounce flash that illuminates the players in the shot without blasting in their eyes. For this sport, you’ll want to shoot from behind the basket and you might favor one side of the floor slightly. I once spent two seasons shooting a team whose best player typically shot from the corner to my left of the basket or drove along the baseline from that direction. For that reason, I edged a bit to my left during those games. Your 200 mm is fine for this sport, but the 2.8 aperture is very important, even with a flash. Idea: Is the crowd small? Go to the corner of the grandstand near the baseline and climb until your camera is even with the plane of the basket cylinder, then focus on the rim. You should get some nice rebounding images.

Always focus on the middle of the bar in the jumping
events. The jumpers aim for the center because they expect
it to be the lowest spot.

Track and field: The field events are a great deal of fun to shoot. Watch your sun and be aware of where the discus, javelin, shot put and hammer throw landing areas are. Running events are fun to shoot as well, but I really enjoy the high jump and pole vault events.

Gymnastics: Most of the time, these gyms are poorly lit and there are strict rules against the use of a flash. This is a great sport to shoot and the only work arounds I have found are: A) Get yourself a camera and lens that perform well in low light conditions or B) arrange to shoot the athlete during practice, with permission from the coach and the athlete, when everyone knows you’ll be using the flash. The bounce flash technique from the basketball section above might work well here.

Soccer: Tough sport to shoot. Huge playing field. Stand on the sideline, hope they come toward you with the ball. I’ve tried photographing this sport and performed poorly. Good luck.

Boxing: I’ve photographed one boxing match in my life, a world championship fight in an open air arena in Mexicali, Mexico about 25 years ago. Shot it with film. I didn’t realize my settings were all wrong until late in the fight. Luckily, there was a knockdown right after I changed the settings and I got the downed fighter as he tried to get off the mat. The Associated Press paid me $50 for that shot and it went around the world. Thus, I am a world-renowned boxing photographer and you’ll get none of my secrets here.

Good luck and thanks for reading.

And now, under center...

I’ve seen lots of quarterbacks, more than I’ll ever remember. But, for a long time now, I have been sure that the best professional quarterback I’ve seen was Denver’s John Elway.

More than any quarterback, Elway had the ability to pick up a team and carry it down the field late in a game. He could pass you down the field from the pocket, pass you down the field on the run or he could run the dumb ball himself to get a drive-sustaining first down.

We could argue about statistics all we want. Some passers have more yards or more scoring passes than Elway and several won more championships.

But Elway had that ability to do whatever was needed to get the late score to win the game. Joe Montana and John Unitas were sensational in this regard as well, but Elway is my pick. Here are my reasons.

First, Elway spent much of his career playing on teams with mediocre players in the offensive skill positions. In contrast to Montana, who had hall of famers catching his passes, Elway's receiver’s seldom rated All Pro recognition.

Until his final two seasons, Elway’s Denver teams seldom had a truly effective ground attack. Once his passing was augmented by a strong running game, Elway won two Super Bowls.

Montana played for Bill Walsh, whose brilliantly coached offenses fit perfectly with Montana’s strengths. Elway did not play for a truly offensive-minded head coach until Mike Shanahan came along near the end of Elway’s career.

Had Elway played for Walsh and Montana played for the Broncos, Elway would have achieved everything Montana did, if not more. Montana, whom I would rate a close second to Elway on my list of the best quarterbacks of all time, would not have been as effective in Denver as Elway was.

My personal list of the top 10 professional quarterbacks of all time is below. It should be noted that I deliberately have not included active players.

John Elway

Joe Montana

John Unitas

Otto Graham

Joe Namath

Sammy Baugh

Warren Moon (special recognition for his Canadian Football League years)

Terry Bradshaw

Norm Van Brocklin

Kurt Warner

I’ve talked about Montana already. He was frustratingly efficient in the late going of close games. Ask the Cincinnati Bengals how good Montana was in the Super Bowl. Unitas, of course, is the man credited by many as the greatest of all time. I have no argument against Unitas but I put Elway and Montana ahead of him.

Graham won more professional championships than any quarterback. He won titles in two leagues, the All American Football Conference and the National Football League, advancing to the championship game in every one of his 10 professional seasons. Quarterbacks are frequently measured by championships and he has the most including one which most fans forget about. Graham played one season of professional basketball and was a member of the 1945-46 NBA champion Rochester Royals.

Namath is best known for one game, but that game is enough for me. That and all the yards and touchdown passes he completed. He had one of the two quickest releases I’ve seen (Dan Marino had the other one). Namath played on very few competitive teams but he remains among the best of all time.

Baugh was the best quarterback of his era and one of the best passers ever. He won in the single wing formation and in the T-formation. By the way, he was one of the best defensive backs of his era and a tremendous punter.

You’ll note that I have consistently written about professional quarterbacks rather than NFL quarterbacks. Warren Moon needs to be credited with his years of excellence in the Canadian Football League and for the purposes of this blog, he is. He is both the Canadian Football League Hall of Fame and the Pro Football HoF in the United States.

Terry Bradshaw won four Super Bowls, heading one of the best teams of all times. I was in the Rose Bowl the day his Steelers beat the Rams for the title. I haven’t forgiven him yet, but I still rank him among the best professional quarterbacks of all time.

Van Brocklin was a fiery leader, a tough guy and a great passer. He shared time with Bob Waterfield as the Rams quarterback in the early 1950s and together they directed an offense that is still considered one of the best ever. He was the starter for the Rams team that reached the championship game in 1955 (which Graham and the Browns won). Then Van Brocklin went to the Eagles and became the only quarterback ever to beat a Vince Lombardi-coached team in a championship game.

Kurt Warner quarterbacked two franchises to Super Bowl games (the Rams twice and the Cardinals), playing in the big game three times and winning one. He had his teams ahead or tied inside the final two minutes of all three games. He had a brief stay with the Giants and won games with that team as well. Warner and Dan Fouts remain the most accurate passers of the football I’ve ever seen. Warner won a title and Fouts, whom I loved to watch play, did not.

Fran Tarkington isn’t on this list. Neither is Marino or Bart Starr. You don’t see Sid Luckman. I nearly included Doug Flutie because of his brilliant years in Canada. Obviously there is room for argument. But it’s my blog and it’s my list.

You can always write your own.

In the meantime, thanks for reading.

Class dismissed

View from the Confederate side of the battlefield,
looking south. Little Round Top is visable to the
right of the white-roofed barn in the center top.

            The 2011 Civil War Institute is over and it was a tremendous experience for a newcomer. The opportunity to meet about 330 like-minded students of the era and listen to a group of recognized experts in the field was an exciting prospect and the reality lived up to expectations.

            The Institute is conducted each year at Gettysburg College. That’s right, Gettysburg College. The one in Pennsylvania.

            The subject frame for this year’s CWI was the run up to the war and the first battles of the conflict. The speakers challenged us to think. We did and, in some cases, the audience challenged the speakers during the question and answer sessions that followed each presentation. (See note below)

Memorial to Confederate general James
Longstreet along Confederate Ave.

            There were some changes to the CWI for this year. The new director, Dr. Peter Carmichael, added a morning of breakout sessions on the final day. These sessions were conducted in classrooms and gave us a chance to hear presentations in small group settings from a wide-ranging group of speakers. Carmichael, who battled a cold all week, was among the breakout presenters. These sessions were spread among various aspects of the battle of Gettysburg and the afternoon was devoted to specially crafted tours of specific areas of that battlefield.

            What could be more interesting?

            Wayne Motts, a battlefield guide and executive director of the Adams County Historical Society, led a group on a tour following the actions of the United States Sharpshooters on the second day of the Gettysburg fight, July 2, 1863. This tour centered on the south end of the battlefield and, while leading his group down a path near the Bushman farm, Motts gave a plausible reason for supposing where Confederate commander John Bell Hood was wounded.

The Bushman farm from the south and east. This area
is believed to be near where Confederate general
John Bell Hood was wounded at Gettysburg.

            Motts read from three-by-five index cards prepared for his battlefield tours. He read excerpts from letters to Hood after the war and from a report by Hood prepared well after the battle. Motts read two descriptions of the topography where Hood was wounded and then Motts explained how the letters described the location where Motts and his tour group then stood.

            What devotee of the battle of Gettysburg would want to miss that?

            It was a tremendous week for an amateur historian/photographer.

            Thanks for reading.

Wildflowers in the Wheatfield at Gettysburg. These
might be black-eyed susans.

            NOTE: This year’s CWI presenters included Chuck Teague (president of Historic Gettysburg Adams County and a Gettysburg park ranger), Peter Carmichael (director of the Institute and a professor at the college), Jason Phillips (author and associate professor at Mississippi State), Allen Guelzo (author and director of Civil War Studies at the College), Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh (author who instructs at Yale), Tim Orr (professor at Old Dominion), Mary De Credico (author and professor at the Naval Academy), Susannah Ural (author, associate professor at Southern Mississippi and senior fellow at the Southern Mississippi Center for the Study of War and Society), A. Wilson Greene (author and executive director of Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier), Ethan Rafuse (author and professor at the US Army Command General Staff College), Joseph Glatthaar (author and professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) and Gary Gallagher (you already know this guy: Author and speaker frequently quoted on various television shows about the War and professor of history at the University of Virginia).

Our Gettysburg visit

General Warren watches from his
spot on Little Round Top.

                GETTYSBURG, Pa. – This town has not been good, historically, to people named Lee, but we’ve had three great days here so far.

I photographed the several areas of the battlefield over the first two days and finally did some exploring today. More on the exploration in another paragraph.

I spent the first two days working on replicating some of the images I’ve produced before. I want the images in a different format and there is no way to get around re-shooting. It has been a good exercise because I’ve re-examined what I did previously and made some changes. The changes, I hope, made for better images.

Today was supposed to be a day of exploring the park. There are plenty of locations I hadn’t been to or had not spent enough time around. I started with the areas around Culp’s Hill. This was the scene of some brutal, costly fighting. It is an important part of the Gettysburg saga, in one way or another a part of all three days of fighting.

And I found something neat. I had been told that the placement of the flank markers and unit memorials were done by veterans of the United States Army only. No Confederate veterans were invited to participate in the work of placing the markers. There are no flank markers and the like, I was told, for the Confederate States Army.

Today I found left and right flank markers for the First Maryland Regiment and a unit marker for the First Maryland Regiment, CSA. Added to that, there is another marker denoting the advancement of that unit during the fighting. The unit marker has been changed to reflect that it now notes the Second Maryland Regiment.

Maryland never left the Union, but that state did have organized units on both sides of the war and I suspect that is why the Maryland CSA unit is remembered today on Culp’s Hill.

A monument to Union Sharpshooters.

I spent part of the morning in the Peach Orchard as well. I want to go back there and do some more exploring with my Nikon. I did nab a few images while I was there, but I want to give it more time in the future.

I always spend time at Little Round Top when I’m here and much of the first two days were in locations there. Found, with help from a Park volunteer, the location where Company B of the 20^th Maine waited in ambush for the Alabama boys and photographed both of the markers denoting the death of Union officer Strong Vincent.

The monument to General Warren on Little Round Top was frustrating this trip. I’ve been unable to figure out where I stood in 2010 when I photographed him overlooking the Valley of Death and the Confederate line on Seminary Ridge. I spent seven hours this week looking for the best shot. Finally, I abandoned that angle in search of something different and that image is included in this blog.

One last note: The Park has been jammed with visitors this week. Today the traffic was very heavy. The 150^th anniversary of the start of the Civil War and the proximity of the 148^th anniversary of the battle here (July 1-3) drew a massive crowd. If you expect to be here for the 150^th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 2013), make your travel plans very early.

We had a visit with our two kids and our daughter-in-law today. All live nearby, so we have already had a delightful visit. Sunday begins the Civil War Institute, so I’m very excited.

Thanks for reading!

Shooting at Gettysburg...

The line of the 16th Michigan Regiment
at Little Round Top. The monument to
the right is near the right flank. The small
marker on the left is the regiment's
 left flank.

The Gettysburg battlefield is an unusual place. Its very name is enough to draw visitors by the hundreds of thousands every year and we’ve been among them for the last three years. The history is a powerful draw for people from around the world, especially from around the United States. The experience, if you listen to the surroundings, brings you back over and over again.

Start at the Visitors Center and take the short walk to the Armisted marker. That’s the high point of Pickett’s charge. From there, look across the field at the Virginia Memorial and measure the difference between a costly success and a bloody failure.

And then walk Pickett’s Charge. Think about what happened that afternoon, July 3, 1863.

From here, see the Wheatfield to
the right, the face of Little Round
Top to the left and Plum Run Valley
between them.

Everyone seems to have an area of the battlefield they want to see more than once. Kids seem to like the scattered boulders known as the Devil’s Den area. Others among us are partial to Little Round Top or the Wheatfield. Pick a spot, read the markers and memorials and then look at the vistas in front of you. Try to understand what happened on the spot where you stand all those years ago.

You aren’t reading a book or watching a movie. You’re standing on a spot where history happened. If you know something about the battle, it is easier to understand what you are looking at. But there is an audio tour and plenty of markers to help you understand what you see.

We’ll spend a week at Gettysburg, starting tomorrow. Part of that time will be dedicated to attending the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College and the remainder will be spent on the battlefield itself, Nikon in hand. I want to augment the images I already have of the battlefield.

The monument to a Union sharp
shooter regiment. The monument
is located on the Loop near
the Wheatfield.

Two cameras this time, the D90 digital and the N8008 film camera. I want to shoot with black and white film, something I haven’t tried at Gettysburg before. You can convert color digital images to black and white (see www.speedylee.com for examples) but film gives a different feel to an image and it never hurts to push yourself as a photographer.

There are lots of websites devoted entirely to Gettysburg battlefield photography and you can find some tremendous images. But the battlefield allows for lots of different photographic approaches and we’ll see this week what images my ideas can produce.

Thanks for reading!

Meanwhile, out in the Pacific...

The Amelia Earhart story has interested me since I was in fifth grade. I spent an otherwise miserable year in the classroom with a teacher that even my mother didn’t like that year, but I was introduced to the Earhart saga when a buddy handed me his library book that he said was about a pilot.

He didn’t mention the ending.

That book sparked an interest that I haven’t lost to this day. Earhart was a remarkable person. She was courageous, intelligent, determined and sometimes lucky. A trailblazer, she was a pilot in an era when few women flew, let alone piloted. Her career is worthy of study.

Because she disappeared back in 1937, much of the attention directed toward her since then has been aimed at Earhart’s final flight. Wild theories, mostly drummed up to sell books or the like, have sprouted up in the decades since Earhart failed to show up at Howland Island in the Pacific. Obviously, I don’t have the answer. If I did, I’d call a press conference and write a book.

I have a guess as to what happened to Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, at the end of that flight way back before World War II. I’ll get to it momentarily. But I want to make a point first.

Amelia Earhart was a record-breaking pilot. She was the first woman to solo across the Atlantic and the first pilot, regardless of gender, to fly from Hawaii to California. She set numerous other historic marks, including an altitude record in an autogyro, the forerunner to today’s helicopters. She had her share of crackups as well, but she kept flying. Rather than blow off her career and jump to study her disappearance, we should marvel at her accomplishments.

This year, four women were in the starting field for the Indianapolis 500 and they acquitted themselves very well. But before those four women raced at the Brickyard, Janet Guthrie and Lyn St. James broke down barriers first.

And before Guthrie and St. James there was Amelia Earhart, a classic Midwesterner with a dream who ignored those who told her, ‘no.’

What do I think happened to Earhart and Noonan? For more reasons than I have the space here to relate (and more than you probably want to read), I think they missed Howland to the west and, perhaps, a bit to the south. Earhart’s radio calls registered their strongest, even over modulated, on her penultimate call to the Coast Guard ship stationed at Howland for her flight. On her final radio call, the strength was still the maximum rating but not as over modulated as before.

Earhart may have started a search pattern to look for Howland. If so, her initial turn probably went away from the island and that decision may have cost her the final drops of gasoline in her fuel supply.

Earhart’s flight path and timing flew her directly into the rising sun, making for poor visibility. Worse, Howland’s location was actually a few miles from where Earhart’s charts indicated. That means she aimed for the wrong spot in the ocean and then might not have been in position to see the right spot.

Earhart and Noonan probably splashed into the Pacific shortly after their final radio call.

Were they rescued by a Japanese fishing trawler and taken as prisoners to Saipan Island? I can’t explain away the reports by former residents of that island that two white fliers were prisoners there before the war, but I don’t think Earhart or Noonan were ever there. Did they somehow get to an isolated island somewhere else in the Pacific and live their final days there? No, I don’t think so.

Lots of things went wrong during that flight. But rather than point out every costly error or failure, it is much more insightful to point out that Earhart and Noonan stretched the technological envelope of the day and the envelope tore open, spilling them into the Pacific.

Sometimes stuff happens.

Thanks for reading.

Marathon ends after bitter dispute with Garmin

            HANOVER, Maryland – The trip ended here at 5:38 p.m., Eastern Time on Saturday, making this a 2,547.2-mile, 106 hour, eight minute jaunt through America. That’s total time. I did not keep track of the actual driving time but I should note here that one of my goals was to complete the trip without exceeding the posted speed limit. I accomplished that, to the dissatisfaction of some of the drivers behind me.

            The last leg, from Dayton to Maryland, allowed me the chance to drive through a portion of West Virginia, my first visit there. I stopped to buy gas and spoke to a nice woman. My unscientific study of the people of West Virginia indicates that they are all very nice and all have Goodyear tires on their red pickup trucks.

            Saturday’s leg included some mountain driving. The mountains in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania are green this time of year and are quite pretty. There were some climbs, but not so steep that the Aveo had trouble. The speed limit was usually 65 mph, but it was 55 in several areas and that allowed for some extended gas mileage. The total stats for the trip are below.

            There is a very famous tunnel, I guess, that I had to drive through on one of the turnpikes. It is almost exactly one mile long and it gave me the creeps. The upper portion of the tunnel is lined with tiles and there are large patches where the tiles have fallen off. It made me wonder what other maintenance work has not been done recently and I was perfectly happy to get back out into the sunshine.

            I traveled with a Garmin GPS device, though I didn’t need it for the first 2,543 miles. I used it to negotiate the final few miles to the hotel and we had a little difference of opinion. The Garmin gave me clear instructions to get off at ramp 10 A, but after departing the highway I was able to determine that the men in US Army uniforms and guns were probably not part of my official welcoming committee. I figured out they probably had something to do with Fort Meade (the gate and wire fence were keys to this theory) and I returned to the highway. Garmin again instructed me to use exit 10 A, which is the ramp I used to ENTER the highway this time. Exit 10 B is a few hundred yards down the way and, as I approached this exit, Garmin informed me with an exasperated tone that it was “RECALCULATING.”

            I could have done without the attitude.

            I finally arrived at the hotel and eventually got some sleep. I visited with my son and his wife Sunday. I’ll have lunch with my son again today, pickup my daughter at the train station tonight and fly home Tuesday.

            The final stats:

Miles: 2548.8 (Including driving to the gas station from the hotel)

Gasoline: 74.1 gallons

Mileage: 34.3 mpg

Duration: 106 hours, eight minutes

Traffic jams: 2; St. Louis (traffic rolled but slowly) and some area near Indianapolis (road work).

Wrong turns: 2; somewhere in Oklahoma (I picked the wrong lane to be in) and near Hanover, Maryland (dispute with Garmin).

Weather: Mostly hot, even during the severe thunderstorm in Dayton, Ohio. Got some rain here in Maryland on Sunday.

Highways: Easy to remember. 40 to 44 to 70 to Maryland.

Hope you’ve had a nice week. Thanks for reading.