When shooting sports for the newspaper, getting IDs on the athletes is as important as getting shots of them. You never read a caption that says: “So-and-so is tackled by what’s-his-name.” Or “Boxer X connects with an uppercut to Boxer Y’s chin.” Football tends to be one of the easiest sports to identify the players [...]
Capturing motion is different depending on where subject is and how it’s moving relative to the camera. If a runner is moving from one side of the frame to the other (left to right or right to left), he/she will look like they’re going faster than if they’re coming towards or away from the camera [...]
When I got to the youth boxing matches at Yaqui Lopez’s Fat City Gym in downtown Stockton, sitting around the ring were officials wearing white polo shirts with a “USA Boxing” logo on them. I sat down with them, not paying much attention to them, and waited for the fights to start. As I waited, [...]
Just a reminder that there are 7 days left in the latest Readers Photo Challenge: Motion. Sporting events are great subjects for action but you can choose anything that moves, from running children to prancing pets, to cars zipping down the street. 1. Entries can be emailed to coto@recordnet.com. Type in “Motion” in the subject [...]
“…we’ve got that momentary time of exhilaration when you hoist that championship trophy over your head, and I don’t know what happens, but some mystical blood kinship is formed. And although it’s a fleeting moment, that kinship lasts for the rest of your life. And the thing I’m most proud of with my teams is [...]
Former Seattle Times photographer Rod Mar wrote a blog that concentrated on sports photography for the Times called “The Best Seat In The House.” The title referred to the fact that we as photographers, especially when it comes to sports, are often close to the action. In sports photography the general rule is: the closer, [...]
At Volleyball.com there is a glossary that gives the terms used in volleyball. Almost everyone has heard of the word “spike”: “A hit or attack where the ball is contacted with force by a player on the offensive team who intends to terminate the ball on the opponent’s floor or off the opponent’s blocker.” And [...]
As a teenager I was a pretty limber guy, though not so much now that I’m a middle-ager. I was on my school’s football team (yeah, yeah, back then they’d take anybody) and during warmups before a game, my teammates would grunt and groan, but I would outstretch them with ease. It was my favorite [...]
When shooting the Stockton Thunder hockey games, I’m positioned on the concourse (about halfway up into the stands) or down behind some thick Plexiglas at one end of the ice. Either way, I can’t really hear what the players say to each other (or the refs) because of the distance or the thickness of the [...]
Photo by Al Golub When watching professional football on television, you might catch a glimpse of phalanxes of photographers on the sidelines. I remember one of the first 49er games I shot. I was shoulder to shoulder with other photographers on the sideline. A guy on my left had a dinky little point-and-shoot camera, and [...]
