PShizzy: The Blog

After some Friday night hs football action, I had to gear up again for Saturday night, as the #15 ranked Arizona State Sun Devils faced off against the unranked Stanford Cardinals. Stanford, if you recall, ended USC’s 35 home game winning streak last year in one of many upsets last year. Stanford came into town hoping they could revive some of that magic.

Arizona, led by Rudy Carpenter, led the whole way, only letting up slightly when the Cardinals cut the lead to 27-17 before the Sun Devils put up another two touchdowns. Thankfully, despite the score, the game was much more competitive than ASU’s home opener against NAU.

While it’s the same game, there are many differences (besides skill level) between the hs and college games. Yes, if you’ve shoot football, you understand the game, but at the college level, football is an event. So, what are these differences?

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Tags: photography by PShizzy
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So I get a call from an old friend and she asks if I wanted to go cover a HS Football game. I was amped. I haven’t covered hs football in a long time, and while football is football, each level of skill has their own challenges. With the NFL, even the worst coach teams can run off a play with military precision. Broken plays just don’t happen that frequently. In college, if you’re lucky enough to shoot a D1 school (such as ASU), then you’ll have an assortment of talent, and while play’s may get broken, the players are often talented enough to make the best of it.

At the HS level, sometimes having enough players is good enough. And thus enters Boulder Creek at St Mary’s. Boulder Creek in only it’s second full varsity year put up a good fight, led by All Region quarterback Taylor Davis. Inexperience in their receiving core kept Boulder Creek on the ground, with Davis running for dear life and the ocassional first down, against St Mary’s. Boulder Creek’s defense held their ground, only giving up a touchdown through the first half to keep the score close at 7-0, but St Mary’s opened the second half with a kick return TD. Eventually, a 32 minute (of 48 total) time of posession by St Mary’s caught up with the Boulder Creek defense. Final score: 27-7.

So, how do I prepare for a hs football game? a few thoughts, and a gallery, after the jump. [Read more →]

Tags: general, photography by PShizzy
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Luminous Landscape is an interesting site. While it may not be the common fare for a lot of photographers, because of the niche the site caters to, it’s still a great read. I especially like James Russell and his views. In the latest LL, he discusses a commercial shoot for Phase One, the digital back company. Think sensors the size of LCD screens. Think 40 plus uh, make that 60 megapixels. Think 30 plus thousand dollars. Ok ignore that last part, because it’s depressing.

I love how honest James is. He goes into the somewhat gory details of the commercial shoot, including the pros and cons of doing the shoot (I love how he mentions the low profitability). Later he talks about the adventure of getting to the shoot, and how unglamorous it is, which is refreshing. Often we may think of some photographers, especially at the higher end, as making a large sum of money and living it up, jet setting across the world in private jets and Maybach whips.

Not James apparently. He rolls to Paris (ok that IS cool) in a truck with his friend who doesn’t know that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, and drinks coffee that apparently is heated by a small nuclear reactor.

Oh, and he does actually talk about his steps in getting it all done, from start to finish. It also helps that James is a kick ass photographer. So, great read.

He has another article, about the D3 and his use of it for sports. Again, great read.

Two last tidbits: First, I’m sorry I haven’t posted recently. X Games was great, but upon my return, I’ve had to play catch up with the rest of my life. Secondly, the video of me cracking open an Airport Security bag like a camera piñata is on it’s way to me. I plan to post it as a mediafire download and a youtube video. If its treated like the Minitrekker video, I may end up dying in photographic infamy (again).

Tags: business, photography by PShizzy
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12:30 Friday and I’m headed back out soon. The first day of X Games 14 was interesting. First, a fast run to the Home Depot Center, simply to get our credential. This wasn’t news to us, as that happened last year. At least they gave us the coolest USB flash drive, the X Games SkateDrive. I actually needed a new USB drive, so it kinda worked out. So after getting our credential, we had to drive all the way back to downtown LA to the Staples Center.

First up: BMX Freestyle. It was a new venue, the Event Deck, across the street from BMX, but it was also about 4:30pm in direct sun. No dreams about cloudy days offering solace, or at least some beautiful golden hour. I tried a few basic shots, and they came out looking like they were shot in direct sun. But I tried a few different things, and eventually got a few shots I liked.

A basic backlit shot. It’s not new, but the idea is that it doesn’t have that super blaring direct sun look. I adjusted the WB in the camera to 10,000 Kelvin, shot about a billion stops under, and it almost looks sunset-ish. Also, I had to do this shot from the media spot under duress after security told us that no media was allowed in the bleachers, where the fans sit. A fisheye, or a long lens to get a nice clean background woulda been great.

Read on for the link to the gallery, including shots of Skateboard Big Air.

Update on the Airport Security video: It’s been shot and basic edits applied. With X Games underway, and strategizing where to go and what to shoot, it’s been hectic. But it will come out in a few days. [Read more →]

Tags: photography by PShizzy
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It’s almost 2am, but I’ve had a long week, and I’ve got a lot to take care of., so I’m sneaking in a post real quick. Wednesday night we covered the state Little League tournament, specifically Blue Ridge, a team from the White Mountain area of Arizona.  They didn’t fare well against the Tempe Guadalupe team. Thursday night, we saw Blue Ridge fall to the eventual state champions, Mountain View.

We mixed it up Friday, catching a Mercury game, as they squared off against the Seattle Storm.  Diana Taurasi led all players with 31 points and 9 rebounds, and the Mercury defeated the Storm 94-80.  Great way to end the week, but the weekend was just beginning.

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Tags: photography by PShizzy
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Living in Arizona, we get just about the greatest amount of sunlight I’ve ever seen. It’s so good in fact, that it can be a challenge, especially when you’re shooting colors that fall all across the spectrum from bright white stripes to full black uni’s. Couple that with faces under the shadow of helmets, and the dynamic range of your camera just can’t cover it all.

Everyone has different ways of dealing with this. For some it’s a matter of exposing properly, and then bringing up the shadows in post process, either with something like the Fill Light tool in ACR, or Shadow/Highlight in Photoshop. Using these tools have their problems, as bringing up shadows also brings up image noise. It can also look unnatural if used improperly.

Another method is to expose for the face of the subject, letting the chips fall where they may on the rest of the exposure. Caveats here include nuclearizing your subject’s white uniform, or radiating the entire field if it’s a bright color. Fun fun.

Over the weekend I was shooting the Arizona USSSA Independence Day Classic, a fastpitch softball tournament held over in Pinetop, AZ. With start times of noon, though, getting the entire range of an image captured was difficult. Read on to find out what I did to combat this, from steps I took in the camera, to an action I made in Photoshop that helped with post process. Oh and it’s a downloadable action. =) [Read more →]

Tags: photography, photoshop by PShizzy
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Took a trip up north as part of my July 4th weekend. It’s technically time off, but I’m shooting a fastpitch softball tournament this weekend. We decided to cover a junior all-star game between Show Low and Holbrook, in Arizona. The lighting, as is typical for night youth baseball, was atrocious. But you work with what you have. I actually didn’t intend to shoot, but ended up grabbing a 1D mk2 and a 300 2.8 IS, shooting at 3200 ISO all night. Because I hadn’t intended to shoot, I got to second shoot the game from 3rd base. When we cover a game with 2 people, we each have assignments. 1st base shooter really has to deal with the batters (since most are righties), plays at third, and anything facing them, like lefty pitchers.

3rd base shooter has it easier, dealing with only the left batters (on average 1-2 out of 9 batters), and spending the rest of the time dedicated to covering plays at 2nd, plays facing them, and baserunners. So, when you’re covering a lefty batter, with a man on 1st, and only one out, you see the double play waiting to happen. You also see the runner at first taking a huge lead. You see the defense tighten up, and the pitcher slows his routine. It’s all anticipation at this point. So where do you point the camera? You have to cover the batter, but you have to be ready to catch a runner trying to steal before or during the pitch. If you wait til after a hit, you know have to see if the defense tries to turn a double play, and if the runner can break that double play up by sliding hard. So how do I manage to do all this? Prefocusing. What’s that, you ask? Read on. [Read more →]

Tags: business, photography by PShizzy
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The Rattlers made an interesting promise earlier this year: If they didn’t make the playoffs, season ticket holders would get a refund. The Rattlers lived up to the expectation, finishing 8-8, with a 4 game winning streak towards the end of the season in order to lock up a playoff spot.

Playoff games tend to be fun, for many reasons. Players understand the gravity of the game, that if they lose, their season is over until next year. The fans tend to get louder, crowds fill the arena (hopefully), and the event takes on a larger than usual feel.

The Rampage led all night, but the Rattlers were down only seven points with a first down and only a few yards away from the goal. Four consecutive runs, four consecutive stops, and like that, season over.

A few more images and a link to the gallery after the jump [Read more →]

Tags: photography by PShizzy
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