So, uh, why the picture of Lisa Leslie? Because it’s all about  smiles and cries (If you haven’t seen Training Day, go see it). A better way to put it, for those that haven’t seen the movie, is that you need genuine emotion to make a photo work. You’ll always hear people saying things about their images featuring a players face, and that’s true, but beyond that you need a face that shows a genuine emotion. Smiles and cries.

When a player is injured, there’s no hiding it. Leslie took a bad fall and could barely walk off the court (hip injury, out a week). Another example I like is the look of dejection, often happening after a game losing shot or your final game in the regular season or playoffs. With most games, there’s always tomorrow. When there isn’t, it’s a somber feeling.

More after the jump.

With injuries, you normally don’t hope or expect it, so anticipation is difficult. Often I see the play through when there’s a lot of contact or some extraordinary physical effort. In basketball this is a hard foul at the basket. In football, it’s that high pass over the middle that turns a wide receiver into safety bait. In baseball its that dive in the outfield.

After it happens though, you can take follow up images. Easy enough when they stop play, as they did with Leslie (above), but sometimes the player toughs it out. When that happens, I’ll shift my focus to that player. Yes, I still want to cover the game, but this may be an important long term story. Dewanna Bonner ended up with a sore wrist, but a more serious injury could have impacted her standing as a top rookie, and the teams ranking as a top team. So I keep my eye on that player, waiting for something to happen. Sometimes it’s subtle. A limp and maybe a wince of pain when walking. Sometimes it’s worse.

Several more examples of the followups to both injuries are in the gallery below.

Jubilation or jube is catching a great positive moment for a player or team. For me, these are a little bit easier to anticipate. You see the momentum changing in a game, a deficit being overcome, or the final nail in the coffin score that seals the game. In basketball it’s the go ahead basket. In football it could be a key touchdown, a sack to kill a drive, or an interception. In baseball, it’s a double play to end an inning or a key strikeout with runners on base.

Jube is what happens after the big play. If you can anticipate well, you’ll know the key play before it happens. But it goes beyond that. As I’ve mentioned before, getting a feel for the players is important. On every team, there’s usually a few players that are very open, heart on the sleeve types. These are the players that will go crazy when a big play happens, either for or against them. Others are a bit more serious. Temeka Johnson is a fierce competitor, so even when she’s happy, she looks mad. I like it.

Jube isn’t just about a player either. It’s about the team. So usually after a play, I’ll see if the player shows something, but then I’ll also pan towards the benches or sidelines. Often, they are as or more excited about the play than the players. If you’re in the right spot, sometimes you can get the team cheering as a background to the key player also jubing it up.

Getting the crowd in a jube shot is also a nice way to show the importance of a play. If you can, try to position yourself where your crowd serves as a background. When a big play happens in that area, you shoot wider than normal, and try to get the crowd cheering as that background, while your player or players jube it up.

As with anything, doing these things just takes some focus, and a bit of practice. If you keep at it, eventually, you won’t need to think about how or when to shoot it, you’ll just know. Once you get that feel for it, it’s a matter of mixing it up. Try different compositions (like the wide shot vs the vertical for basketball), different backgrounds (clean, crowd, players, coaches, opposing team sulking), anything.

Practicing this during the regular season is a great way to be prepared for the more important games. And it doesn’t need to be the same team. Some of my best jube shots came from high school games. Be thankful you don’t have to hear the audio that goes with a jube shot in girls softball or basketball at the high school level. But their jube is amazing, because it’s so completely and utterly open and genuine.

As always, comments and questions are welcome. The gallery is below.

WNBA: Los Angeles Sparks at Phoenix Mercury – Images by Max Simbron

Generally speaking, after a few games, you get a feel for the style of the team (if they have one) and the tendencies, both good and bad. Understanding the team allows us a better opportunity to catch moments, and make some nice photos.

For example, I’m sure that Diana Taurasi has a chip on her shoulder. Was it from not making the playoffs last year? Does she see that perhaps this team has the talent to go far, and wants to display a level of intensity as a standard for her team? I don’t know what the answer is, but I like it so far. Every game has had her reacting to foul calls and non-calls. Every game, she’s been playing very aggressively (which may explain the fouls). I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up MVP and leads the league in technicals.

So what else am I noticing two weeks into the season? More after the jump.

Dewanna Bonner. She’s actually ranked as the top rookie pick in the league. While she doesn’t have a polished skill set, she’s a very talented player, and plays hard. You can teach skills, but talent and heart are hard to come by. Photographically, I find it difficult to get a nice shot of her on offense. Rebounds? Defense? No problem. But a sweet jumper or play at the basket? Nothing that looks good. Hoping she cleans up her post game.

Temeka Johnson is a great fit for the Mercury. She’s tiny, but she really pushes the offense, allowing the offense to run at a high tempo (the Mercury are leading the league in points per game, and already set a single game record). She’s fearless and scrappy. I like seeing her slashing against obviously larger players without doubt, and on defense, she’s very scrappy (even if it does look funny when she covers a player a foot taller). I could use a good scrum image of her, maybe a loose ball dive. She’s already dove into the stands a few times. At least the fans won’t need to worry as much as when Shaq is on the rampage.

There’s a lot more I could cover, but I’ll save that for later in the season. Needless to say, it seems like the Mercury have the right mix of longtime players, veterans, and a rookie. As the season goes on, I’ll keep looking for tendencies and try to work with them to come up with the right images.

Lastly, I’ve now switched my image gallery over to Photoshelter’s own gallery feature. I even mentioned it last year in a quick update post, but hadn’t really used it for more than archived images. The gallery is listed below, can be displayed in fullscreen, and works in slideshow format. And all I had to do was upload the images. If anyone is really interested in Photoshelter, I’ll be glad to answer any questions about it, and even have a discount code for anyone really interested.

As always, comments and questions are more than welcome.

WNBA: Minnesota Lynx at Phoenix Mercury – Images by Max Simbron

Despite the shooting woes, Diana contributed in other ways, grabbing five boards and five assists, as well as two steals and two blocks, rounding out her stats.

When one of the bigger names on the team is having an off game, or even the entire team seems to be in a funk, what do you do? I mean, you gotta show something for being there. So what do you do? Just like players can contribute in other manners, we can look for something other than the usual “player driving to basket” shots.

Read on to for more pics, a gallery, and the type of shots I look for besides the usual peak action.

If you can’t already tell, Diana, or the team for that matter, wasn’t too thrilled with the officiating. So I went for shots that represented that frustration. To be honest, it’s fairly easy to catch those shots, if you know to look for them. Let me explain.

I usually try to shoot a player as they drive or take a shot at the basket, then switch over to the paint, looking for rebounds and hustle plays. When I see that a player is frustrated though, I stick with them. They missed, but maybe they felt they were fouled. They feel sleighted, like the officials aren’t calling anything in their favor. So I wait for it. And it happens. For some players, it’s a rare outburst (like Grant Hill), and for others, it’s as common as breathing (Rasheed Wallace). But you can see it build. So wait for it. It will happen. And tonight, it happened a lot. Enough so that I got every combination of frustration (single player, team, coach, ref, and every combination of those). Just check the gallery.

Besides that, I try to get hustle plays, like a loose ball dive, known to many as the scrum. For those, I’ll usually keep on the defender instead of the ballhandler, waiting for them to make their move. Again, it’s a matter of patience. You might miss a great pass or cut for an easy score, but those happen so often (I mean, it’s the point of the game). So you stick on the defender. And wait. Eventually, something happens. And you get it.

Yes, sometimes you get lucky. A great shot happens right where you were, and it’s awesome. But if you want to make it happen again, you need to anticipate. Learn the mannerisms of the players, the style of the team, get a general feel for the vibe of the game. If you do that, you’ll see that every sport has more than just peak action, and getting those different images is what rounds out the body of your work.

Gallery link is below. As always, comments are welcome.

New York Liberty at Phoenix Mercury

Another season of the WNBA season began on Saturday. The Silver Stars came into town, a strong contender after making it into the finals last year (only to be defeated by the Shock). So to kick it off, I tried to get a little bit of everything. I won’t necessarily start backwards, but if you look at the starting image, I’m pretty sure you can tell who won and who lost given Becky Hammon’s expression. Most people like jube shots, I prefer dejection.

So, what else do I try to get when a new season starts? Read on to find out.To start, I try to get a few of the new players on the team, hoping to get them in action, and hoping that they offer some emotion. Temeka Johnson, is the new veteran point guard, coming over from LA. She’s pretty gritty, and I liked the way she played, like she had a chip on her shoulder because she was the shortest player on the court (even for the WNBA, 5’3″ is short). I also tried to get shots of Dewanna Bonner, the Mercury’s drafted rookie.

I like to get good shots of the new players, because this is the first game, and you will only have anything you get from that nights game. With some of the other players (Diana Taurasi, Cappie Pondexter, etc) you can always use a stock photo if necessary. Because of that, it’s important to try to get shots on both offense and defense, though you would lean more towards whatever they tend to do best (blocking shots, rebounding, shooting or slashing).

This year though, the Mercury struck up a deal with Lifelock, to feature their logo on the Mercury jerseys. How European. This means all those stock photos suddenly get dated. So you sorta have to get photos of each new player. But beyond that, it’s always good to look around and see what else has changed.

Sometimes it’s something related to the players or the teams, like the new players or the jerseys, a new team intro, etc. And sometimes it can be something that affects how you shoot, like the lighting being changed (usually for the worse), or something you did to change things, like a new lens or camera. That was the case with me.

This was my first WNBA game shooting Nikon. While I’ve been using Nikon for about 7 months now, I haven’t shot any WNBA games with it. And it was certainly different. A full frame camera really worked well up close during the NBA season, but even with a 70-200, I felt like I needed to shoot at the longer end to get the smaller WNBA players tight in the frame. And for farcourt, the 300 2.8 was pretty good for NBA games, but for the WNBA players, it would be like shooting with a 70-200 on my old Canon gear. So I went with a 200-400, stuck it at 400 most of the way, and felt it tightened up shots much better. And with the D3 being so good at high ISO, I had no problems shooting at ISO 4,000.

With my equipment figured out, an idea of the shots I wanted to get, and generally having checked and double checked everything I needed to, I could relax, and just have fun with the games and get my shots.

Like Diana Taurasi clotheslining someone. Maybe that’s a Phoenix thing (I totally miss Raja Bell. Always had a chip on his shoulder, and willing to chop, knock, or whack someone). I’m still missing some of her other moves. She has this spin move, where instead of using her elbow against your body and spinning off, she goes high and catches people in the neck area. Stuns them while she spins. It’s great.

Oh and and before I forget: I try to get a few shots of each coach. In both teams cases, the coaches were incumbents, but you still want to get a few shots. Shots of Corey weren’t too exciting, but Silver Stars coach Dan Hughes came through for me. Towards the end of the game, he really felt his players weren’t getting too many calls. Ranting, raving, and then a nice showdown with one of the refs.

I like the ranting and raving stuff, but the ref sold me on this one. He looks really thrilled to be having this conversation.

All in all, it was a good game. Even had a few shots of a halftime event where they had dog racing. I gotta admit, shooting dogs at full speed up close: damn near impossible. Which means I need to go find me some dog agility events and get my practice in.

More pictures in the gallery, available at:

San Antonio Silver Stars at Phoenix Mercury

As always, if you have any comments or questions, please feel free to write in or email me.

BTW, it’s good to be back. I’ll try to start blogging regularly again.

Next up, I thought I’d test out a photo gallery. Photoshelter has recently updated their site to offer Flash based photo galleries. I think it’s pretty cool because it’s so easy to set it up. In fact, it’s retroactive, so I can set up a Flash gallery for any galleries I’ve already made. Creating the gallery itself isn’t too hard either, but this has further motivated me. So, I’ll give it a test run after the jump.

Oh, and I’ve been playing with a few D3′s lately. I really like the cameras. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from users over at the FredMiranda forum on a few posts about the D3 and my opinion on it. Link to that after the thread. It’s been a long couple of weeks. Preseason NBA, NCAA and high school football, even a local kids soccer game, plus other non sports shoots (wedding, and two schools) have kept very busy lately. It’s been great to be so busy, but it’s also been time consuming. And of course, it’s my favorite time of the year, with the NBA season finally starting. More after the jump!

So, while I’ve been a Photoshelter user for years, I really haven’t used all their features. Most of them, like prints, and FTP to clients, really don’t do much for me. But when I saw their customized page, and the fact that it takes a few clicks (literally), I was pretty happy. Then to see the new Flash galleries, and how easy it is to embed, I was hooked. So, aside from uploading to maintain a strict backup of my work, I’ll be able to quickly and easily create galleries. Here’s a quick jpeg of my customized page, and the page you get when you click on the gallery image. No Flash on this one, because I want to use those galleries for the blog, and keep the customzed page simple. Oh and here’s the link to my customized page.

I like it. Oh and here’s their Flash based gallery. I simply go to any of my galleries through my account, and hit embed gallery. I can preview the gallery, and then copy the code to embed. It even works fullscreen. Badass.

BTW, if you look at the gallery, most of those images, at least the frontcourt stuff, is shot with a D3 and 70-200 VR. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been trying them out for a while now, and I’m very impressed. I’m no scientist, and certainly there are better photographers out there who shoot Canon or Nikon. But, I do have my own opinion, and for what I shoot and how I shoot, I have to admit, I really like the D3, and Nikon’s zoom lenses. Actually, I really loved the 70-200 VR, but when comparing their other zooms, the 70-200 VR is the worst of the bunch (the vignetting is heavy, VR really seemed lackluster compared to IS). Canon’s 24-70 isn’t even close to Nikons. And the 14-24 is nothing short of amazing. I found it laughable to even try to compare it to the Canon 16-35.

Anyhow, I got into lengthy posts over on Fred Miranda. Feel free to read it. I’m still not sure if I’m going to post about this in the blog. I’m no expert, and I can’t possibly recite stats or pull data to prove anything I’ve said. I just know that I like the D3 and their zooms. So feel free to read it and come to your own conclusions. I’d be glad to try an answer any questions about the two systems.

Preseason NBA with the D3

It’s been a good while since I’ve shot boxing, and the scene in Phoenix, even Arizona, just isn’t as strong as it once was. I remember shooting the “retirement” fight for Julio Cesar Chavez (this was actually a tour, as he retired a few times), and even shooting the stunning upset of Sergei Liakhovich by Shannon Briggs, in the very last second of the very last round. The fights themselves weren’t amazing comparatively speaking when you consider the depth of boxing lore. But for a few fights, Phoenix was the place to be.

Back to the point: I love black and white boxing photos. You’re left with fighters and details when you remove the color. Tonality, the contrast of the image, works to great effect with a nice black and white conversion. A couple more photos, a small gallery, and an oldie but goodie link after the jump.

Because I hadn’t shot in so long, I tried to have fun with my shots. I tried using a fisheye, and like the effect with certain shots. In this one, the boxer on the floor is obviously in a bad way, and I like that you can see the other boxer, even if it’s a glove and some trunks. The distance, the expansive field of the ring, kinda makes the guy on the floor look lost.

I actually tried a few slow shutter shots, and I may post them sometime, but I just never got the boxers close enough and at the right speed to consider any of the images to have been properly executed, even though I consider it a small success. I say that because trying something different from the norm is always a good thing. Whether you got the idea from another picture, got bored and had a fisheye, or just hoped for the best, it’s good to try.

See, right here, I like the frame. I didn’t crop it much, so that I could get the full effect of the fisheye, but the guys look miles away. I actually like it more because of the judge in the back, looking intently. I sometimes wonder if they get surprised by a big punch.

Back to the point, AGAIN: Black and white. I’ve tried a lot of different black and white methods, but for the most part, I still stick with LAB mode black and white. Before I go to that, I’ll mention a few options, and my opinion on them.

First, the easiest method for Photoshop is the Desaturate command. This is the only time I’ll ever mention it. It’s that bad. Here’s why: If you took a bright red fire truck, and it was on top of the brightest, greenest grass you’ve ever seen, while the sky above was so blue you’d actually wonder what exactly you ate that you’re seeing a fire truck on a lawn, and then took all that and hit Desaturate, you know what you’d get? a boring barely above neutral truck, on a muddy looking lawn, with what looks almost like an overcast sky without clouds. It’s that bad.

Channel mixer is a pretty popular option, and with good reason. You can juggle the intensity of each channel, Red Green and Blue, to the overall mixture. That means you can select all, or most of one channel as the foundation for the whole black and white. It’s pretty cool, but I often end up with something that looks insane and unreal, or plain Jane average. Try it though, you may like it for your own work.

Lightroom has a nice Black and White tool. As with all their tools, the Tonal adjustment feature is a godsend. Simply select the image to be black and white, then pick areas of the image and click and hold with the mouse, moving up or down to brighten or darken areas. It’s almost like a cool version of paint by number. Like tone by number. I like it, but often the same ranges of color you want to drastically affect (say a background) ends up affecting something you didn’t want to touch (like a skin tone) and it goes awry. But it’s still cool.

Cool enough that Photoshop got it built into CS3, and it can be an adjustment layer as well (so can channel mixer, FYI). It’s about the same. Again, cool.

But my favorite method is still separating the Luminosity Channel (in LAB mode) and making it a new layer. This involves converting to LAB mode, copying the L channels, pasting it to a new layer, switching back to RGB mode, and so on. Of course, I have an action to do all this (even has a hotkey). From there, I tone the image, using Curves (you can use it as an adjustment layer) to do that.

I like it because it renders out a really nice range of tones. Curves accentuates that, to the point that you can get really inky black backgrounds with good tone on the fighters while the white of sweat/blood/anything shoots off a fighter as they catch a surprise hook/uppercut to the chest/face/groin.

So, here are the links. First up is my B/W tutorial. It mentions the conversion, has my Action Set link, and then also uses Curves.

PShizzy B/W Tutorial

If you don’t understand Curves very well, I also offer a Flash Video presentation on it:

Curves Flash Presentation

It goes through Curves in both Lightroom and Photoshop.

Finally, here’s a small gallery of the boxing images.

Showdown Promotions Boxing Night

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?

Well, the introductions for one thing. Sun Devil Stadium has a pyrotechnic show as part of their team introductions. I like to capture different images of the team intro’s, sometimes trying to get a wide shot of the entire team, with the band and fans cheering. Other times, I like getting a few players who look pumped up to start the game. It’s great because you can get some nice images over the course of the season by focusing on different aspects each game.

A D2 or D3 school might not have fireworks, but they will still put on a show. Some schools take pride in their band, and will really put on a show. Some schools (Hawaii comes to mind) have rituals that separate them from other places. Other schools have mascots that happen to be particularly good with their showmanship. Whatever it is, find it and shoot it. Then shoot it again the next game, with a different perspective.

Access is vastly different from start to finish. In HS, you can usually get very close to the sideline, and even walk up and down, even through the teams benches (some coaches prefer you not do this). In college, you are not allowed to walk through the team benches (unless you’re the schools photographer), which tend to be huge. At ASU, each bench runs from 20 yard line to 20 yard line. Coverage then is limited from the end zone to the 20 yard line on each sideline. The buffer zone between the field of play and the media line is also huge. Where a 300mm lens can usually work well on a hs field for tight action shots, it can tend to be a bit short for the college game.

Light is usually better, because the colleges have bigger venues for their games. If you can eek out 1/500th 2.8 at 1600 or so, then consider yourself lucky. That can easily be two stops better than a local high school field. Of course, you can’t use flash during a college game (this may not be the case at the lower levels, but I’ve yet to see it), so there’s that tradeoff.

Equipment, for the most part, remains the same. As I mentioned before, you probably want a 400mm more than a 300, and you won’t use your flash during the game. Securing your equipment will depend on the venue. At the HS games, you can usually take a basic kit (2 bodies, 300, 70-200 or fast prime, flash) and maybe carry a small belt pack or backpack with you. But for college, that may not work well. Larger crowds, and smaller sidelines mean you have to be careful where you leave any equipment not in use. Consider taking a lock and some chain/cable to secure your bag and/or laptop while you’re covering the game. The Think Tank Airport Security comes with a built in security cable, and the zippers have a small combination lock (which is TSA compatible). With so many people around, things can dissapear easily. Be smart, and be safe.

Finally, have fun with it. College can certainly be tougher to shoot than high school, but the game is the same. Find the players of the game, the strengths of the team, and the overall mood of the game.

Here’s my gallery of the ASU vs Stanford game:

ASU vs Stanford

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.

For the most part, it’s like any football game, only you want to bring a flash with you (flash is prohibited in college and the pro’s).But if you haven’t shot it, here are my thoughts:

It’s a field sport, so you won’t always be too close to the players and the action. Having a 300 or 400mm lens will help you. Unfortunately, it has to be a 2.8 lens if you shoot night games.

I’m not saying you can’t get shots with a 300 4 or 400 5.6, but the reality is that without shooting full on flash for every image, the ambient exposure is often atrocious on high school fields. As an example, I was shooting at 1/500th 2.8 at ISO 3200. I still got some motion blur, and the exposure was just about ok, but I was at the limit of my equipment. a 300 4 or 400 5.6 loses you one or two stops of light. Oh and I was shooting at a college field. I can’t imagine how badly lit the older high school fields are.

Bring a Flash. I hate using my flash, I really do, but had the light been any lower (and it was in the corners, so I set my ISO to 6400 for a few plays), a flash would be necessary to get anything sharp. I don’t like the deer in headlights look, and I see all these ways of dealing with it, like setting the flash way high, or way low on the monopod. They work for redeye, but it still tends to look unnatural. So why bring it? Because at some fields, you simply have no choice, like it or not. While I went to do the shoot to hang out with a friend, I also ended up submitting photos for print purchase, and to a website that dedicates itself to youth football in Arizona. As the client, I want them to be happy with the work, even if it means I have to use a flash (thankfully I didn’t).

Scout the team. My friend covers Boulder Creek all the time, and she not only knew the teams strengths and weaknesses, she knew them all as individuals pretty well. She clued me in. The QB is talented, the receiving core is young, the defense plays hard. But I didn’t have a friend to tell me about St Mary’s. I couldn’t tell you anything about that team other than they won. Because I only needed some action photos for the submission, it wasn’t a big deal. But what if St Mary’s was the client? Trust me, I would have gone to their website, read the hs section of the big paper’s website, and done other things. Knowing the key players, especially at the hs level where they can stand out better, is important.

Lastly, it’s nothing like college or the pro’s when it comes to playcalling. If you’re a football fan, you know they’re going to pass on a 3rd and long. If they have a big back and a strong O line, you know they’re running a majority of the time, and overwhelmingly so on 1st down. It makes sense. But at the HS level, the talent levels vary too much. Some plays require a lot of practice and a core of players who’ve been together for at least a season. Example: Third and long last night, I started hustling down the field, to anticipate the deep pass for a hopeful first down. Maybe, if I was lucky, a nice over the shoulder bomb. As I walked past some players, they asked where I was going, and I told them where and why. They laughed. Said they’re running. On third and long I said? YES, wanna bet, they said. No, I trusted them, stayed put, and got a sweep to the right side. Did I mention the team had two sophmores at the receiver slots? Talented, yes, but very new to the system.

Oh, ya, the photos.

Boulder Creek at St Mary’s

I’m off. ASU faces Stanford tonight. Have a good weekend!