Double Duty - Shooting For Both Teams During The NCAA Baseball Super Regional

My "dogpile" shot as featured on the IU website

The end of the college baseball season means the end of my sports photography season as well. Beginning in the fall with college football, sports photography takes up a lot of my weekends, and often times some of my weekday evenings, from late August through early June. It's been a memorable year in many ways, but now it's time to hang up the long lenses for a couple of months and have some fun with other aspects of photography.

IU Coach is doused after his ESPN post-game interview

This past weekend was a doozy. As I posted on this blog, I was hired by Indiana University to serve as their team photographer during the NCAA Super Regional baseball series against Florida State so I knew I would be spending Saturday, Sunday and maybe Monday (if a Game 3 was necessary) at Dick Howser stadium during the hottest part of the day - noon start on Saturday, 1:00 pm game time on Sunday. When I arrived at the stadium on Saturday,  my photo obligations expanded dramatically - I was now going to be shooting for both teams as FSU decided to add both of the games to my assignments so I could max out my season's Purchase Order.

This was a first for me as I usually only have one team to shoot for and can concentrate on nailing down the action for one set of uniforms. Shooting for both teams meant having to decide which team to concentrate on for a given play, i.e locking in on a batter at the plate to catch the ball coming of his bat instead of the other team's infielders who might have to dive to snatch a ground ball. Trying to memorialize as many of the highlight plays for a given team is much more difficult when you're attention is necessarily diverted.

Hoosier 1st baseman collides with the right fielder while fielding a fly ball in shallow right

So I did the best I could. Sometimes I felt like my head was going to spin off my neck as I was constantly whirring it around from one part of the field to the other to make sure I wasn't missing something.

Here are some more of my favorite shots from the second game of the series.

On Sunday, the weather forecast included a strong likelihood of rain so I opted to go "light" in terms of gear. I had hoped to use my new 600mm f4 all weekend but it is a monster to lug around when you have to run for cover and I wanted to be quick and nimble in the event rain began to come down. Aside from the cumbersome nature of such a heavy lens, I knew that if I had the 600mm as my long lens, I would also have to have a second camera body with me at all times equipped with a shorter focal length (the 70-200mm f2.8) to cover the near stuff that the 600mm couldn't because of its length. That meant two cameras to grab while making a dash for the dugout. My 200-400mm f4 is way lighter, and because of its wide ranging focal length, using it meant being able to pretty much cover all aspects of the game with just one camera body. So, I left the Biggest Dog at home. I did, however, take my 400mm f2.8 just in case a rain delay caused the game to go into the evening hours. I prefer to shoot at f2.8 under the lights and since it was no big deal to bring the Big Dog and just leave it in the car for need-be use, I took it just in case.

IU's pitcher adjusting his fingers to throw the split finger fastball, caught with the 600mm 

The 600mm was the bomb, though. I used it Saturday and it was a dream to use. The AF-S autofocus was lightning fast and I was pleasantly surprised at how well it balanced on the monopod. I was able to swing it from side to side, up and down, no problem. And boy, could I get tight with great sharpness. Not having to crop much, if at all, during post processing made for better quality images.

Here is a sampling of my images from Saturday's game

With the games in the record books, I now have to go through all the images I shot and process those worthy of being cleaned up. IU is expecting a disc with anywhere from 50-75 game images and the same goes for FSU. Once that's over, I can settle back, reflect on my sports year, and dive into all the things that have taken a back seat to sports for 10 months.

I will miss it, though.

Shooting As A Hired Gun

 I'm wasted. This was a looooong weekend of baseball. Between noon on Friday and yesterday evening I photographed almost 45 innings of baseball (on Friday, I only shot a few innings of FSU's game against Savannah State as the game was not an official assignment and I was shooting just for grins). It wasn't just 45 innings of baseball, it was 45 innings in +90 degree heat, a lot of it in the unshaded midday sun, and +95% humidity.

But I had to suck it up because I had a job to do. On Friday and Sunday, my job was to shoot for Troy University as the team made its way through the NCAA Baseball Regional tournament in Tallahassee. As long as I did not have a Florida State University assigned game to shoot, I was free to shoot for any of the other schools taking part in the tournament. The Sports Information Director for Troy's baseball team had contacted me before the Regional and asked if I was available to shoot for them. I was assigned to shoot FSU's Saturday game, so I could not shoot for them on Saturday as there was a chance that the two teams might be playing each other (and that'e exactly what ended up happening - Troy v FSU in the Saturday Winner's Bracket game). But I was available for them on Friday and Sunday so it was game on for them on those days.

I shot Troy's Friday noon game against Alabama (Troy won 5-2) and then was back out there in Sunday for their noon loser's bracket game against Alabama. Troy staged an amazing bottom of the ninth, 4 runs down, two out rally to score 5 runs and defeat Alabama 9-8 for their second win against their in-state rival. The win meant Troy would play a second game on Sunday - the Championship game against FSU - at 5:00 pm. That meant two games on Sunday for me and Troy. I was out there from 11:00 am until 9:00 pm. Loooooong day.

But I'm not writing this to elicit sympathy as I sit here on Monday morning, mega-dehydrated and scorched from sitting in the sun for three days. The point of this post is to give you some insight into how I approach the task of shooting for other teams when I am a hired gun for another school. It's simple. Simply stated, I make it a point to shoot for them exactly as I would if I were shooting for FSU.

Take a look at the two images above. One was shot for Troy on Friday, the other for FSU on Saturday. Two artsy fartsy shots of some baseball gear, one for each school with some Photoshop manipulation to create something out of the ordinary in terms of sports images. As part of my role as a sports photographer for FSU, I always make it a point to supplement action images with pageantry, art and other non-action images that can be used for marketing, web site, and/or media guides, and I try to use my bag of Photoshop tricks to create unique images. When shooting for other teams, I treat them no differently. Ergo, an artsy fartsy, grunged up baseball gear shot for Troy, another for FSU.

Pre-game activities are no different. The first two images above memorialize the Troy team during the National Anthem with the scoreboard in the background. The second caught the coaches' handshake after exchanging lineup cards. Ditto for the FSU game - National Anthem and coaches' handshake. These are images I consider must-get for something like a baseball Regional to memorialize the event and I made sure to get them for each team.

Action shots? Going clockwise above: Troy player sliding safely into home; Troy player diving back to first base on an attempted pick off; Troy batter ripping a pitch for a base hit; and Troy pitcher.

 For FSU? Virtually the identical kinds of shots as the opportunities presented themselves. It made no difference who I was shooting for, I was trying to get the same level of action images.

What about celebrations after scoring a run? Oh ye of little faith. Troy on the left, FSU on the right.

I hope you can see that it made no difference to me who I was shooting for. There are several reasons I make a concerted effort to provide the same level of images to clients and make no distinction between a client I shoot for regularly or one for whom I may never shoot again. For starters, it's a matter of pride. Despite my limited photography skills, I want to provide any client with the best possible Images I'm capable of producing. In addition, I want all my clients to feel like they got their money's worth when they go through my images and I especially don't want an out of town client to feel like I just mailed it in and didn't give them my best effort.

Last but not least, one never knows whether someday, that baseball Sports Information Director for Troy might end up as the Media Relations guy for the Indy 500, or the U.S. Open, or the NFL. If I give him my very best effort and the images are something that he recognizes as solid and professional, were he ever to be in a position that would open new doors for me, it's always nice to be remembered as someone who was capable, dependable and professional.

I give every one my best effort and I know it may one day be paid forward. Hopefully, the Troy SID will feel that way about my work. Even if he doesn't, I know that I did the best I could, and after all, that's all we can hope to do.

Now, excuse me while I go drink a gallon of water.

My New Website May Become A Squarespace Featured Site

After a month of eye fatiguing image searches through countless hard drives; hours of font selection, color changes, design tweaking and image processing; naming and renaming image galleries; uploading, arranging and deleting images; and scrambling to take the site live, I was finally satisfied with the way my new website looked. I'm still in the process of messing with it some - for example, I will be adding a new image gallery (Hot Wheels) once I have enough quality car (and possibly motorcycle?) images to display - but the overall framework and look is a done deal.

The entire time I was going through the design process, I did my best to resist my inner impulses and deviate from the original concept - keep the site simple and tasteful. Somehow, I managed to keep my demons in check and the final product seems to have achieved the goal.

I've been contacted by Squarespace and advised my website has been submitted for consideration as one of their Featured Sites using the Wells template. Apparently some of the images in my galleries, as well as my design tweaks to the template, caught their attention and it is being considered for addition to the Featured Site list. As a Featured Site,  Squarespace visitors wishing to see a website designed with the Wells template would click on the "See Example Site" link and portions of my site would pop up for viewing. Very cool.

Still Messing Around With Cars...

As I continue to explore the nuances of automobile photography, I thought it was time to take the next step and migrate from shooting just the details of vehicles to creating images that depict the entire vehicle. I used a 2007 Ferrari 599GTB as the subject for the images below which include one detail shot and a full length shot of the car. It's still an ongoing, learning process, but I'm thoroughly enjoying the learning process as I explore a whole new aspect of photography.

One of the things I decided to try for the first time was using some HDR processing in the creation of  the full length car image (as you can see in the first image above). I think the HDR look really kicks tush with car images and now I just have to experiment with it to come up with images that use the technique in a flattering manner.

Beisbol Still Bein' Berry Berry Good To Me

With Florida State having selected as one of the top 8 National Seeds for the upcoming NCAA Baseball Tournament, the Seminoles will be hosting one of the Regionals this weekend. If FSU wins the Regional, it will also host the ensuing Super Regional, the winner of which would advance to the College World Series in Omaha. The teams taking part in the FSU Regional are FSU, Alabama, Troy and Savannah State.

I've been assigned to shoot Saturday's FSU game, which will either be the late game in the winner's bracket or the earlier game in the loser's bracket depending on whether FSU wins its opening game Friday against Savannah State. I'm also set to shoot the Coaches' press conference scheduled for Thursday afternoon. I was not scheduled to shoot any opening day games on Friday, but late yesterday I was contacted by Troy's Sports Information Director and asked if I was available to shoot their game against Alabama. I've quoted Troy my fee for shooting the game and it's being run up the Troy Athletics flagpole since it is a bit higher than their SID is authorized to pay. If they're willing to pay my standard rate, looks like I'll be shooting for Troy on Friday. I'm supposed to hear back today.

Switching Gears To Baseball & Testing Out My New-Used D3S

Nikon D3S, ISO 1600

As the NCAA basketball season winds down for me every year, I have to switch photography gears in my head and start thinking about shooting baseball. Going from basketball to baseball means breaking out the big lenses for regular duty, shooting outdoors with ever changing light conditions, shooting night games under lights that pose a white balance nightmare, and as the season progresses in humid Tallahassee, braving temperatures in the upper 90's (and sometimes 100+) with 95% humidity.

I wouldn't miss it for the world. Buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks.

I don't know if I shoot baseball any differently than you but I do have some thoughts on shooting the game. I created a YouTube video a few years ago in an effort to create a primer for anyone unfamiliar with shooting a baseball game.  If you're new to this kind of sports photography here's the video.

FSU's new Football Indoor Practice Facility

I recently received a new-used D3S from KEH Camera in Atlanta (only 648 shutter clicks!!!) and have been chomping at the bit to  test it out and make sure everything works the way it's supposed to. Tuesday, I was scheduled to shoot Florida State  University's new Football Indoor Practice Facility  (currently under construction) for a magazine article and the 'Noles baseball team was playing a mid-week series at Dick Howser Stadium against Florida Gulf Coast. The baseball stadium is located right next to the football facility so what better chance to test out the camera body? I knew the football facility shoot would be low ISO, wide angle shooting and the baseball game would be early evening/, dusk, and under the lights shooting that would involve high ISO settings and a long lens. One extreme to another. Perfect. I arrived at the Indoor Facility just before 6:00 pm, met up with my escort and went about getting the shots on my shot list. Basically, these were images that would update the progress of construction, mostly of the interior, but out of an abundance of caution I decided to snag a few shots of the exterior as well. Then, it was on to baseball.

ISO 1600

Game time was 6:00 pm so by the time I settled into the shooting pen just beyond FSU's dugout along the 1st base line it was 6:45 pm or so. I grabbed my 200mm-400mm f4 lens, set the D3S to ISO 800 and 1/800th second and started shooting. My plan was to shoot until just past dusk so I could push the camera body to ISO 2500. With an f4 lens, that was expected, which is why I brought it instead of my 400mm f2.8.

FSU's John Sansone smacks a fastball over the left field wall with a runner aboard.
ISO 800

ISO 800 and 1600 was a walk in the  park for the D3S, just like with my other D3S body and a noticeable improvement over my old D3 which I sold in order to buy the first D3S.

ISO 800

ISO 1600

ISO 800

ISO 800

ISO 2000

ISO 2000

But a D3S doesn't really begin to get warmed up until it gets beyond ISO 1600. As light began to fade, I increased the ISO to 2000 and then 2500 before I left after the 6th inning. Well, I didn't really leave the park after the 6th inning ... I left the field after the 6th inning and went up to the press box where I knew there would be some food. I grabbed some dinner and ate while I relaxed,  watched an inning, and touched base with FSU' Baseball. Then I headed home to download the cards and see what I had. Hey, I was hungry and I wanted to make sure FSU would win the game before going to the car.

ISO 2500

Lighting at Dick Howser Stadium creates color issues (the light is very, very warm) and there's only so much you can do to adjust the white balance (which is why I hate shooting night games at Dick Howser Stadium), but aside from the expected white balance corrections, the D3S chewed up the high ISO's and spit them out. Noise levels are fabulous and what noise resulted was easily minimized with Photo Ninja. If you've never used Photo Ninja, it's the new version of a program I've used for years, Noise Ninja, and it's finally out in Beta as a Photoshop plug-in. after having been available since release only as a stand alone program.

ISO 2500

Yeah, buddy - the baseball season has begun and I'm now armed with another tool. This D3S will be replacing my older D300 which gives me two solid, relatively noise free camera bodies to shoot under any kind of light. The D300 will still get some use during day games or daytime shooting as it does great up until ISO 800, but as good a camera body as it is from a noise level standpoint, it just can't touch a D3S.

Now if Nikon would just come out with a replacement for the D300, an fx-sensored body with improved noise levels....