I have retyped this sentence too many times, so I will start simply by saying, this is my first blog entry. I am a photographer in northern Minnesota and each week I'll be covering the not so glamourous life of being a fulltime freelance photographer. I mainly cover sports and seniors along with other areas that I will blog about. If you are a camera geek, I'll be tossing in my camera settings for the pictures I post as well. I'll pass on the formalities of an intro blog post and instead insert snippets of me into the blogs. Here we go!
This past weekend was the season opener for high school football in Minnesota. The team I frequently photograph is the Esko High School football team. They kicked off their season opener taking on Duluth East at Esko. To set the scene, Esko has one set of bleachers, and they are behind the home team. Once again, I'm back on the sidelines, I had a Nikon Z9 and my trusty 70-200 lens in hand. (More on the Z9 in future posts). I tend to gravitate to the visitor sidelines for their home games as the football photographer. I like the backdrop of the bleachers behind the players. I tend to sit on the ground or my knees. I like the low shots. I like to capture the emotion of the game and for me, I like to see the players eyes. Tonight, I was attending the game for 2 main purposes. #1 as the coach's wife; I put together the end of year highlight slide show that has at least one pic of every player and #2, this year I rolled out a senior photo package called the Full Huddle. The Full Huddle is a package where in addition to taking senior pics, I also commit to taking pics at the senior's sports games. This night, I was there to capture the QB. I took his senior pictures a few days later and now throughout his senior year, I will be at some of his games sending the game day pics to his family afterwards.
As a football photographer, I tend to take anywhere between 800-1500 pictures during the game. It's a big swing, mainly depends on if I can shoot the full game due to daylight or not. This game got moved up to 3pm due to the weather. To my surprise I had over 2K pictures. Yes, that it way too many. I should have changed my camera settings. I shoot in burst mode, meaning it takes a burst of pictures at one time. I can set it where it caps off how many pictures it will take at a time. This is a MUST before the next game. I still haven't seen all the pictures yet, but these are some that I saw during the game that I really liked. My fav of the game is the 3rd one down. For me it is the combination of the player's eyes, the turf coming up off the ground and the other player flying through midair trying to make the tackle. Camera settings: F 2.8, Shutter: 1/1250, ISO 250, my focal length ranged from 120-200 for these shots.
When I accidently get that many shots, it makes it hard to review all of them. I am coming off of a busy senior grad season, and I need to finish editing senior pics before moving on to football. I'll spend the next several days wrapping up grads before I see these game pictures again. I tend to overshoot my first game of any season. Just takes one time for me to see the daunting number of pictures and then I shoot more diligently, more purposefully. I don't take very many pictures of objects moving away from me or when they are not looking my way. If I do, I need it to tell a story. See shot of #75 below.
So what is it really like being on the sidelines for football games? You need to develop an ok relationship with turf pellets. Yes, it doesn't matter how hard you try, you will track them into your house and mistake them for mice droppings. Football sidelines are for the most part predictable. Unlike volleyball, where the direction of the ball can change at any moment, football you can plan for. With that said, you also need to be very aware of incoming players. I haven't been knocked down yet (just jinxed myself) but I have been at games where people have. As a female, I can say I have never played football. I was not used to the sounds. The helmets bashing, the grunts from players getting hit, the groans from players cramping up. The sounds took a while to get used to and some I still don't like to hear.
If you are not a sports photographer, you may not know that your camera tends to like certain people. It has nothing to do with who I know or who are my friend's kids. It's the big personalities, the large movements, the big reactions after the play. This team is relatively young, with only one returning starter. Like me, my camera is learning who everyone is. Though it did give me a few glimpses as to who it will be drawn to this upcoming football season. Esko lost this matchup, 14-24.
From Northern Huddle Photography, this is Amy, sports photographer.
