strobist | Photocrati

Shooting Sports 1 – A Primer

Over the past several years, I’ve had the opportunity to shoot a wide variety of sports. I am a people/portrait/event photographer in Frederick, MD, but I also have two active kids.

I also have a wide variety of friends who have kids active in sports, and who ask me to take pictures of their kids doing the things they do – which include sports. When you tote a camera everywhere, people assume you take pictures “everywhere”.

I was also fortunate enough to have the opportunity to serve as the Digital Media Director, responsible for photography and videography, for the U.S. Deaflympics Team at the recent Deaflympics in Taipei, Taiwan. (See the photos here.)

My goal with the next several articles is to help the budding sports photographer (or the involunteered sports photographer) get better pictures. In my experience, it usually takes two to three games of shooting before you learn the tempo of that particular game, and learn where to stand to improve your odds of getting a better shot. With proper instruction and guidance, my hope is that you will be walking away with keepers on the very first game. (more…)

Review: The Kacey Beauty Reflector

I was recently given the opportunity to experiment with a Kacey Beauty Dish, so I decided to put together a review/explanation/demonstration.

One of the blogs I read all the time is the Strobist blog (www.strobist.com). David Hobby has been writing this blog for a while now, and I have learned lots from him.

One of the great things he did when he got started was he realized that it was not going to be possible for him to answer every question, or respond to every comment. So, being the innovative person that he is, he started a flickr forum that allows various photographers from all over the world to learn, share and teach one another.

That forum is here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/

Recently on this flickr forum there was a review and discussion about the Kacey Beauty Dish. Musician/photographer Steve Korn apparently got one to play with, and offered his opinions in a well-written review here.

I was lucky enough to be able to play with one of these beauty dishes (Kacey calls them “Beauty Reflectors”) recently, and took it on several different shoots. (more…)

Building the Shot

I was recently doing a baby photography session at a friend’s house, and had an idea for a really nice photograph of the baby. I shared the idea with the dad (who was my assistant for the shoot) and he thought it was a good idea. I am not sure he was able to visualize the end result – nor was he able to visualize what the shot would look like until we were pretty far down the “shot setup” process – but he was delighted with the result when we finally got it. (more…)