Insider view of an 18 day sports assignment.

pgriz · Feb 17, 2015

As always, powerful shots. Peak action in each one.

imagemaker46 · Feb 17, 2015

MichaelHenson said:
This is awesome! If you don't mind my asking (and feel free to hold your response until when you have more time... ) what is your workflow/processing approach. I recently did photos for a marriage conference my wife and I attended and ended up spending a good deal of my downtime processing photos to correct the color (due to red and orange LEDs in the lighting), cropping, and reducing noise due to the poor lighting (despite using a flash on camera with a Fong diffuser). It got me thinking about sports photographers taking hundreds (or thousands) of photos in a day and then having to quickly get them uploaded or sent for publication...Just curious as to your approach.

Also, your work is amazing! Inspirational!

I'm shooting somewhere between 1000-1500 images a day, depends on how many sports and what the sports are. I go through them all and select 60-100 for my clients flickr site. These ones are cropped, colour corrected, etc. If I have any special requests for pictures those get done right away, otherwise I go to bed.

All this means is that I have a few weeks after the event is over to go through everything, ID as many individual athletes as I can, team sports I just shoot the roster and attach it to the file. The good thing is that I'm under no pressure to rush and get the images sent out, as most are being used for future promotional material.

ronlane · Feb 17, 2015

imagemaker46 said:
Day two shooting. Archery, Gymnastics, Speed Skating and Curling to come. It has already been a long day, out the door at 8am, back to the hotel for a couple of hours and heading back out at 7pm for curling.

My favorite Scott. I'd nominate this one for consideration for POTM

MichaelHenson · Feb 17, 2015

imagemaker46 said:
MichaelHenson said:

This is awesome! If you don't mind my asking (and feel free to hold your response until when you have more time... ) what is your workflow/processing approach. I recently did photos for a marriage conference my wife and I attended and ended up spending a good deal of my downtime processing photos to correct the color (due to red and orange LEDs in the lighting), cropping, and reducing noise due to the poor lighting (despite using a flash on camera with a Fong diffuser). It got me thinking about sports photographers taking hundreds (or thousands) of photos in a day and then having to quickly get them uploaded or sent for publication...Just curious as to your approach.

Also, your work is amazing! Inspirational!

Click to expand...

I'm shooting somewhere between 1000-1500 images a day, depends on how many sports and what the sports are. I go through them all and select 60-100 for my clients flickr site. These ones are cropped, colour corrected, etc. If I have any special requests for pictures those get done right away, otherwise I go to bed.

All this means is that I have a few weeks after the event is over to go through everything, ID as many individual athletes as I can, team sports I just shoot the roster and attach it to the file. The good thing is that I'm under no pressure to rush and get the images sent out, as most are being used for future promotional material.

Ah...No rush makes it nice. As I thought about it, my respect for those photographers that shoot events and then basically have to immediately upload them for clients (newpapers, etc.) grew like crazy. I'm sure you are to the point where you get pretty much exactly what you want right out of camera but as someone that ends up having to spend some time doing a decent bit of processing, the thought of an event and then a deadline or race against all the other photographers to get photos out first (like I've read from some photographers shooting fashion week or Olympics), well, it's overwhelming to even think about!

imagemaker46 · Feb 17, 2015

Thanks Ron, and thanks for all the kind words from everyone.

The one thing I didn't touch on is that for all that is going on, the long hours, doing what I really enjoy and coming away with decent images, I've missed some nice images as well. I'll talk to some of the volunteer camera owners, and they envy the gear I'm using, some take pictures of it. Others are shy to talk to me, and that's fine. I met a high school student last night, she was using a Canon rebel and a decent lens, but it was also a slow f5.6 and I asked her what she had her camera set at, this was at the wheelchair basketball. I was shooting at iso-3200-4000, 400th-500th sec at 2.8, she was at iso 16,500, and another photographer told her to shoot on aperture, well, she couldn't understand why a lot of her pictures were blurry. She was smart, had taken some courses and was enjoying what she was doing. I helped her out with the manual settings, and then gave her my 70-200 2.8 to use. She was really surprised that someone would do that, I don't know if her pictures got better, and she could only uses the lens for a short while, her wrist was getting tired.

Sharing what I have and what I do with other people helps keep the mind going in the right direction, especially when I start to get tried, wakes the brain up a bit.

ronlane · Feb 17, 2015

Scott, I have to give it up to you for that story. To spend some time sharing lenses and helping that girl while you are working is awesome.

JerryVenz · Feb 17, 2015

imagemaker46 said:
Thanks Ron, and thanks for all the kind words from everyone.

The one thing I didn't touch on is that for all that is going on, the long hours, doing what I really enjoy and coming away with decent images, I've missed some nice images as well. I'll talk to some of the volunteer camera owners, and they envy the gear I'm using, some take pictures of it. Others are shy to talk to me, and that's fine. I met a high school student last night, she was using a Canon rebel and a decent lens, but it was also a slow f5.6 and I asked her what she had her camera set at, this was at the wheelchair basketball. I was shooting at iso-3200-4000, 400th-500th sec at 2.8, she was at iso 16,500, and another photographer told her to shoot on aperture, well, she couldn't understand why a lot of her pictures were blurry. She was smart, had taken some courses and was enjoying what she was doing. I helped her out with the manual settings, and then gave her my 70-200 2.8 to use. She was really surprised that someone would do that, I don't know if her pictures got better, and she could only uses the lens for a short while, her wrist was getting tired.

Sharing what I have and what I do with other people helps keep the mind going in the right direction, especially when I start to get tried, wakes the brain up a bit.

Outstanding images--but that's what I expect from a real pro.!
Looks like you're really in the "zone" and having fun. I like the story of the young lady struggling with her amateur equipment and that you took the time to help her to the extent of lending her that lens--you probably weren't using it much on the slopes, though.
Jerry W. Venz M.Photog.,Cr. CPP

imagemaker46 · Feb 17, 2015

Out shooting biathlon and freestyle moguls today. Had a good shoot with the biathlon, really sucked shooting the freestyle, I picked the wrong side of the hill as the competition was delayed because it was too sunny for the judges to see. It was nice early with the snow kicking up behind the skiers being lit, but it went away. I also had another fall down the hill and once again used my 300mm to stop the slide, but not before hurting my knee again and now my shoulder. I don't plan on climbing anymore hills until next week, I don't think my 59 year old body could take another slide.

Here are some from today.

vintagesnaps · Feb 17, 2015

Well worth the effort is probably an understatement, but your hard work is paying off in the results you're getting. Spectacular shots, every set is just superb.

(Someone asked about the women athletes wearing long pants, that's ringette I think isn't it? can't say I know much about it.)

imagemaker46 · Feb 17, 2015

Oh ya forgot to answer that one. Yes it's Ringette. It's pretty big in Canada, one of the top countries in the world along with Finland, Sweden. They play it in the US, but I don't believe it's very popular. The ring they use is basically a rubber donut, no blades on sticks. The girls that play it are generally better skaters than most women hockey players. It's a fun sport to watch, and shoot.

imagemaker46 · Feb 18, 2015

Today was a rather uneventful day, first shoot started at 9am-1:30, two ringette games, off to short track speed skating until 4:30 and right to a hockey game until 6:30. I shot around 700 images during the day.

imagemaker46 · Feb 19, 2015

I've attached a couple of the overall shots of the venues I was working in today, Shooting and Gymnastics, both were shot with a 40mm, just to give an idea of how busy things look. The shooting venue is more challenging as you're not allowed up to the shooting line. The air pistol targets are lit so I used that light to help the images. The gymnastics venue is small and very busy, for the rings I shot from where the overall was done, the others I moved to an overhead running track and worked there, just for a cleaner background and a different look. Tomorrow is the last day for these sports, a new set of sports starts on Sunday.

vintagesnaps · Feb 19, 2015

Interesting to see the place. The one of the judges is so cool! what a shot. Another great set, some real nice close ups. But what are those ghostly hands??