Washington vs Penn

Penn for the Touchdown

This past couple of weeks I have been thinking of how I could incorporate more of my job into my photography. I was thinking I would like to include more of my sports work into my blog and I sat down and thought, what’s going to be my angle. What am I going to focus on when I’m out working to see things from a different angle. I started doing a little bit of research, checking out other peoples pages and seeing what they focused on in their sports photography. What I noticed was that most of the work they were putting out really wasn’t focused on the actually game itself. Most of it was focused on pre-game, sidelines and all the in game moments. For me it was kind of out of realm because when I go to shoot a game, I’m shooting the game. What’s happing on the field, across the field, if I can reach that far, all the action. It never dawned on me to turn my camera toward the sidelines and take pictures of what’s not happening on the field but is still part of the game. So for our game against Penn, I turned the camera and go shots of the things I normally wouldn’t get pictures of.

QBs getting warmed up

In my research, I noticed a lot of pictures of the players warming up, getting ready for the game and how the photographers were focusing on random moments. I thought to myself, I can do that, I just need to focus on the students, not so much the action, but the action in terms of it being slower, not full speed tackling and running. I watched for the first few games and took pictures until I got comfortable and the game against Penn High School seemed to all come together for me. I was focusing on the sideline just as much as I was on the field and it was a little different than what I expected.

Coach Not Looking Happy

What I liked most was the emotions you could see on the players faces, even the ones that were not in the game. But the ones that were coming off the field, you could see how much the game was either wearing on them or how tired it was making them. I never really thought about how the game affected the coaches as well. I was always looking for that shot of the coaches talking with players or yelling at them when they messed up, I never really focused on them and how the game itself was unfolding. This game was tough for our side, we took a pretty good beating for the second week in a row and you could see it all on the coaches faces, as well as some of the players.

Penn High School Band

The other aspect I tried to focus on in pre-game was getting shots of the ambience and I was fortune that Penn has one of the biggest bands in the Area. I loved the band as part of High School Football. It reminds me of the when I was in high school and the bands playing our school song or that local favorite “Sweet Caroline.” Whenever I hear it, the hairs on my neck stand up a little and I can feel the electricity run through me, just like when we were about to kick off at the beginning of the game. Our school doesn’t have a band so taking pictures of another’s school band doesn’t weigh to heavily on my mind. Bands are awesome for high school football and I wish our school could have one. But getting the shots of the band was one of my favorite aspects of the night. These guys even wore birthday hats on the sideline while they were waiting to get onto the field. I wonder if it was one of their birthdays.

Catching the ball off the defenders head

Although we took a tough loos, I did try to get pictures of both teams playing. I am always looking for the best shots, whether they are on our side of the ball, or on our opponents side, I’m a fan of sports and I love capturing the best moments regardless of where they come from.

For me, my shot of the day came from the one place I never thought it would, pre-game. I was squatted down trying to get some shots of the band lining up before the game and they got into formation to play the national anthem. As I was raising myself to my feet, I happened to look up and see the band major standing at attention looking at the flag. Normally you see this and think nothing of it, but today, just the angle I was at from behind, with a ladder to their standing platform in the way, it just came all together for me. I saw that and had to get that shot and I did. I just hope it’s as nice a shot to you as it is for me.

National Anthem and the Raising of the Flag