Sport photography has little to do with luck.
Sure you have to be lucky in the moment of capture, no matter how fleeting that is and sometimes you feel the luck is heading away from you at great speed, but when a good capture comes, you recognise it for what it is. Luck born of preparation and affirmative action.
A short lens in close. I was literally sprayed with sweat at one point (and the sweat cleaning crew were next to me), but the intimacy of the image with it’s 3d effect were worth the risk.
What do I mean by that?
To get good sports images (not great though, because I am not there yet), you need to push past safe, to head into the realm of edgy. Your subjects can lead the way here, the better and more exciting ones push their comfort envelope constantly, so it is encumbant on us to do the same.
They put it all on the line, so we should also.
Early in my career I was happy to just get a sharp shot, but now that is not enough. It has to have intimacy and a feeling of being close to missed, even near impossible for me, to feel satisfied. I want the same feeling of excitement I feel when taking an image to come through.
Shallow depth of field, low angles, shooting into the light, shooting too tight, pushing too close to the action and playing fancy with your angles, are all important elements if you want to go next level.
Getting a shot of the team huddle is mandatory and I got plenty, but if you can, a more intimate portrait can be had. Of over 60 images I submitted to the sports team on the night, this one was one of half a dozen chosen. Always worth the risk.
Always look for a stronger shot.
Not an amazing image, but a bit better for employing shallow depth of field (150mm f2.8 and I would have used wider if I could), which helped the front runner “pop”. Deeper focus depth was more than possible on this bright spring day and common sense would dictate you use it, but with safety comes mediocrity. Just because they are smaller, slower or lower grade than the top tier, does not mean you should take the pedal off the metal, because they are not.
So, sport photography has everything to with luck, but only after you push that luck as far as you can and employ decent technique.
This image really pushed the limits of my processing chain and not long after taking it I did move to the less light saturated side, but that extra bit of drama, the genuine threat of failure make it all the more compelling. Realistically, without the dramatic, almost dominant light, it is a fairly pedestrian image. I just realised also, that every player on court is in the frame more or less. Thanks must go to Capture 1 and ON1 No Noise for making this image possible (the original is pretty grim).
This not only applies to action shots. This portrait of Holyee Jackson, a rising star of BMX was taken over the journalists shoulder during an interview. This often nets me a more relaxed and real image, rather than the staged ones we usually do (and yes, I did).
There is no doubt more and better can be done, but that is the promised reward for extra effort.