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 [...]
These two photos almost look like as if they could be the same shot, or at least part of the same sequence. But, while they are actually 3 frames apart, they aren’t exactly part of the same play. It was during a game between West High and Oakland High in Edison’s McDonald’s Classic boys basketball [...]
When shooting a football game, we often look for more than what’s going on out on the field. Often during breaks in the action, I scan the bleachers for something out of the ordinary. During a recent game between the Chavez Titans and the Tracy Bulldogs at Franklin High School in Stockton (Chavez’s field is [...]
“My friend has a baby. I’m recording all the noises he makes so later I can ask him what he meant.” – Stephen Wright Do you remember those posters that looked like seemingly white noise back in about the 1980’s or ‘90s. They looked static-y snow patterns seen on some channel-less TV sets but if [...]
Between halves at nearly every high school football game the cheerleading squads from both sides put on extended routines for a halftime show. The game between Stagg and Edison at Edison’s Magnasco Stadium was no different. As soon as the first half ended and the players made their way off the field, both cheerleading squads [...]
In photography there’s a saying that goes “it’s not the camera/equipment that takes a great picture, it’s the photographer.” In shooting football, that’s mostly true. Mostly. Most people think that to shoot sports such as football you need a super long telephoto lens. That’s mostly the case. In photographing football (and sports in general), given [...]
There’s a saying that goes “sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you.” The Brookside Christian High School Knights varsity football team found that out in their first game of the season. In 2010 the Knights won 12 games and did not sustain a loss until the California Interscholastic Federation Division IV State [...]
I’ve been to many sporting events where the National Anthem has been butchered by a “lucky” person who’s been chosen to sing it. Not that I would have done any better, but I have sympathy for them. The Star Spangled Banner is a notoriously tricky song to sing. The notes of the song are stretched [...]
The high school football season is upon us, and one of the things that sports photographers will tell you about getting a great gridiron shot is timing. Proper timing can be the difference between having the ball out of the frame or in the hands of a wide receiver. It can also difference between a [...]
