Sports Photos: Wait for the Peak of Action

Sports photos can be a lot of fun to shoot, especially if you happen to have kids in the family that are active in a particular sport. And considering the long lenses that are available not only to DSLR shooters, but to a lot of point-and-shoot and zoom cameras, it's possible to get close to the action even from a relatively distant sideline. Some zoom cameras, in fact, have zooms with a 24x range and the long telephoto zoom setting is often over 400mm in 35mm terms--focal lengths unheard of outside of pro gear up until a year or so ago.

But while long lenses will get you close to the action, it still takes a few other skills to get great sports shots. Interestingly, one of the best skills sports shooters posses is patience--waiting until there is a peak of action. The more you know about a sport, of course, the more you can predict exactly when that peak will occur. In volleyball, for example, in almost every point there is a clash (and often several of them during a single point) at the net and waiting for that instant to shoot will provide great moments of action. I only had to watch this informal pick-up game at a local beach for a few moments before I realized that the net was where the action was taking place. In this shot the ball is at its peak and both players are completely off the ground.Knowing that the best action was repeatedly happening at the net helped me to visualize and frame shots in advance and then all I did was sit back and wait for the best shots.

All sports have some kind of action highlights and, again, predicting where and when they will happen is just a matter of knowing the sport. If you've sat through a few hundred kids' soccer matches in your life, you know that most of the exciting action happens in and around the goal. Focusing on the goalie will provide you with much better chances to get a good action shot than trying to snatch random bits of action in a huge field. You might spend more time waiting than shooting (especially with soccer), but you will probably get a higher percentage of exciting shots. In baseball the bases (especially first and third bases which are closer to the sidelines) are good places to concentrate your attention.

Waiting for peak of action also has a benefit when it comes to freezing motion, too. In most forms of action--a diver at the peak of her upward momentum, for example--there is a brief lull before the speed of the motion increases again. By timing your shots to capture that peak of action you can use much lower shutter speeds and still get very sharp results. One little game that I play when I'm watching sports on TV is trying to imagine when I would shoot if I were photographing the action with a still camera. I actually sit there and say (out loud) "click, click, click," which is why I rarely watch sports in a bar. If you visualize those moments and plant that sense of timing in your head you'll find yourself getting a much higher percentage of great action photos.

Avoid the Need for a Model Release

One of the issues that all photographers have to confront when photographing other people is getting a model release. If you're thinking of selling, or even just displaying, photos of other people you really should have a valid release. The actual legal need for a model release (especially for purely editorial, noncommercial usage) is frequently debated (and often misunderstood), but from my personal point of view: if you have recognizable people (or property) in your images, it's worth getting a signed release.

The key word here, I think, is recognizable. I'm certainly not an expert on model releases, but it's generally accepted that if a person isn't readily recognizable, then you don't need a release. The subjects in this photo may recognize themselves, of course, because they remember being at the beach or they may recognize their beach pails or their clothes, but without their faces showing, it's unlikely anyone could ever prove it was them in this photo.

That's why, when I'm out shooting in public places (like beaches) and I am too far away (as I was in this case) to get to the subjects in time to have them sign a release, or when I'm working where it's almost impossible to get a release signed (a busy city street in Manhattan), I consciously look for moments when the subjects' faces are turned away from me. Does it rob me of some of the best shots? Yes, I think it does. But does it simplify life and provide good photos in situations where getting a release would be a major hassle or impossible? Yes. I watched this interesting father and daughter gathering (I think) periwinkle shells at the beach for about 20 minutes or so, but I was a few hundred feet up on a rocky overlook and getting down to them with my tripod and cameras would have been pretty dangerous. So as I watched them, I tried to wait until they were just generic humans on the shore. Again, it's a trade-off that probably isn't even legally necessary, especially for editorial usage, but it makes my life easier.

By the way, the other downside of not making contact with your subjects is that you can't offer to send them prints of your photos. I would love to have shared a print with this father/daughter since they seemed to be having such a nice time together, but by the time I had finished shooting they had moved on and I lost track of them down the beach.

There are some good books available on model releases, of which my friend Dan Heller's A Digital Photographer's Guide to Model Releases: Making the Best Business Decisions with Your Photos of People, Places and Things is certainly one of the most exhaustive and broad views of the subject. Dan isn't a lawyer, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone who knows more about the business of photography.

The best advice in my view is to carry releases with you, get them signed when you can (and get a phone number and address for your subjects) and consider consulting a lawyer about this subject if you begin to sell or display your photos.

Time Candid Group Shots Carefully

One of the followers of this blog wrote and asked for some tips about shooting group photos. In the next few days I'll go through my files and see if I can come up with a good "posed" group portrait to write about, but in the meantime I came across this candid (obviously!) shot taken at Mystic Aquarium and thought it illustrated a good point about candid group shots: choose your moments carefully.

I had been watching this small group of people interacting with a Beluga whale and thought it would make a great shot provided I could get everyone--including the whale--to look attractive and do something interesting at the exact same moment. Considering that I didn't know any of the people and the whale probably wasn't going to pose for me, it was a tough situation. Every time that I had the whale in place, one of the people would step in front of someone else or just make an awkward gesture, etc. And when the people were looking good, the whale was no where to be found.

I finally decided that the best thing to do was just be patient and wait for the shot with the exposure and focus set in the manual modes. I had the lens in the manual-focus mode so that I could prefocus on the whale during a trial exposure since he kept surfacing (at the commands of the trainer--the woman on the left) in the precise same spot. I set the camera down on a flat rock surface (at the edge of the pool) with the people pre-framed where I wanted them and I tried to look at the scene through my viewfinder as little as possible and just watch the scene with my naked eye and fire when the shot moment looked good. If I could have the camera on a tripod (not allowed there) I would have.

There are a few reasons for using your naked eye instead of constantly peering through the viewfinder (it was too bright to use an LCD, even if my DSLR had had Live View and it didn't). For one, you can see things that you can't see through the viewfinder--like the whale underwater, about to break through the surface. And also, you're more in touch with the moment when you're not stuck behind the camera. I tried to watch the scene like a cinematographer, just waiting for the best moment and it worked.

This technique can work at home or family picnics, too. Even if you're photographing your kids on the swings in the backyard, for example, if you set the camera on a tripod and pre-frame the scene, you can just talk to your kids face to face and use a cable release or a remote (I was using a cordless remote--$15 from Nikon) to fire the camera. With the focus and exposure on automatic (I often use the Program mode for shots like this), all you have to do is watch, wait and shoot.

Silhouette Subjects Indoors

Taking silhouettes is a fun way to create simple bold compositions and though most silhouettes are created outdoors against the sky, you can also create them indoors. I've shot many silhouettes of my cat, for example, sitting on the windowsill watching birds at the feeder. All I do is frame the cat and expose for the light outside.

You can also create some clever silhouettes in other indoor situations. I photographed this mother and child in front of a huge aquarium window at the Mystic Aquarium, for instance, just by hanging back and watching them as they waited for something interesting (a penguin in this case) to swim past. I shot several frames of them just standing there, but then the mother pointed at a penguin and I knew the gesture would make a more interesting shot.

The secret of a good silhouette is having a bright or colorful background (preferably both) and exposing for the background. Exposure isn't critical and you can always saturate the black shapes and the colors later in editing.