Whoever said “timing is everything” in sports photography left out the other important part: lighting. This post will be of little interest to most people, but for students of photography or those looking to learn more about sports photography, I hope you find it of interest.

One aim of sports photography is to isolate your subject. Typically that is done through depth-of-field, namely a shallow one. You keep your subject in focus, but objects 2 to 3 feet in front of the athlete are out focus. Depth of field (DOF) is determined by three main things:

1. The focal length of the lens used. All things being equal, longer focal lengths leads to a more shallow DOF.
2. Distance to the camera to the subject. The closer the subject is to the camera, all things being equal, the more shallow the DOF.
3. The aperture or f/stop. All things being equal, as the lens is “opened up” (moves towards f/1) the DOF becomes more shallow.

But light can also be used in to isolate a subject. In this case, a sports photographer has to be lucky but also has to be able to spot the chances where the perfect lighting can be had.

Below is a photo from Carter-Finley Stadium, home of the North Carolina State Wolfpack Football team. There is about an 8 minute window on the field when the sun is low enough that Vaughn Towers cast a shadow over the field and stands, but there is a sliver of light that cuts through the openings where the exits are. It lets in just a tad of light over a very small part of the field, but if you can get a picture of a play in this light, it’s just perfect:

Notice how only the player(s) are in the light, but the stands and even foreground are in the shade. These moments don’t come often, but keep your eyes out for when it comes.

—- Update October 8, 2007 —-

Below I thought I would add an example of a flat photo where the subject blends in with the background. This is typically what you get as again, the sun has to be in the perfect position to get the lighting like you saw above.

The guys had a 8am Saturday morning practice last weekend, a 8:30am one today and another one is set for next weekend. As much as I like sleeping in on the weekend (and I do love sleeping in) I wanted to get out to at least one of these practices.

During practice Chris Hunt had asked me what it was like to photograph with the sun low in the horizon. I said it was much better than photographing at noon when the light was directly above. The main reason I came at 8:30 am was not for the novelty of doing a morning practice, but because I knew the light would be too good to pass up. When one photographs a game at 1pm, a standard start time for many games, the high sun casts shadows from the helmet onto the faces of the players. So the face of the player can be blacked out (unless it is an overcast day). But with a lower sun the light is cast more in their face, so you can see the faces clearly — making the early wake-up call worth it. (Although at 7 when my alarm went off, my body tried hard to talk me out of coming).

The last practice I was at there were no numbers on the jerseys. I made a comment to one of the coaches that I found it amazing that they can recognize all the players, especially the freshman, with no help from numbers. I later found out that they were not given numbered jerseys because the coaches wanted to assess the players’ skill without being biased. With no numbers, even they had a hard time picking out players so there were no favorites to pick. Everyone started equally and everyone had a chance to impress, from the freshmen to the seniors.

With the initial assessment now done, the players now are wearing their numbered warm-ups. During practice the team had a “blue white” scrimmage.

Coach Haus’ wife, Mrs. Lisa Haus suggested a new tradition for the team this year: A special dinner at the Haus’ house for each of the four classes. Tonight’s dinner was for the freshman. Next month the sophomore will have their dinner, the juniors in November and the seniors will wrap it up in December.

Before dinner, Coach Haus’ youngest son Grant played a game of paper football with Milton Lyles on a coffee table in the living room. The goal was to take a piece of paper folded up into a triangle and try to slide it across the table, leaving it partially hanging off the side of the table without falling off. If you managed that, you got to shoot a field goal for extra points. No doubt Milton had a lot of experience before tonight playing the game. If Milton ever approaches you to make a bet to play him in paper football, don’t take it. He will beat you handily.

With so many hungry mouths to feed, I was expecting Mrs. Haus to have the dinner catered. But I was impressed to see she was making everything on her own. On the menu tonight was chili available in both beef and chicken.

The team both lifted weights and had a practice out on Finley Field today. The practice could not come soon enough for me. The weight lifting routine was for me getting, well, routine. While the strength and conditioning staff does an excellent job of mixing up the sessions with different workouts, I was getting to the point that I felt maxed out creatively on what I could do in there. I knew that would going to be a challenge: To find new angles in a repetitive environment. But I have been pushing myself to come out at least once a week regardless and push myself to find something new to do. The first couple days of weight room I took the machine gun approach and took a ton of photos. Now however, I take way fewer photos — taking them now more deliberately after studying the environment and trying to think outside the box. It’s not unusual now for me to just watch the players do a few reps on an exercise before even picking up the camera.

Today broke up the monotony as it was my first practice to photograph. The team started last week but I missed it while I was out of town. Even without the benefit of a calendar to tell me that outdoor practice had started last week, my olfactory intuition would have clued me in. The locker room typically had a neutral smell to it. But when I walked in today, the equipment and padding worn out to practices brought a certain, well, striking scent to the air.

It was great to see the lacrosse team in lacrosse gear. I was freshing to be in a new environment and feel like a kid in a candy store. So many photo opportunities…so little time. It was also a relief to be away from the terrible lighting in the weight room.

I split my time during practice taking the “sports photographer” approach and the “creative photographer” approach. As the sports photographer I took action photos of them practicing and running drills using a lens with a long focal length. The creative photographer in me took photos with a wider lens and focused on the human aspect rather than the action.

I returned from San Diego yesterday and was ready to get back to the project after being gone for some time, although I wasn’t ready to leave the great weather behind. Returning to North Carolina reminded me of what humidity is — a reminder I could have done without.

After lifting weights the players returned to the locker room to vote for their choice of captain for the upcoming season. I was trying to get a photo of a player filling-out the ballot but they all turned away to vote and voting only took about 5 seconds. But I did get some photos of them dropping off their ballot.

The missed team photo due to rain last week was looking like it would again be missed as clouds loomed over Chapel Hill. No rain fell however and the team photo went on as scheduled. Jeffery Camarati, the UNC staff photographer, would typically do this photo but he was with the football team down in Florida. In his absence I did the photo and I have done many, many team photos in my days starting with my career at Georgetown University. But today had to have been the worst experiences doing a team photo yet. I set up four monolights on tripods to properly light the team. In the course of setting up though, one of the tripods tipped over taking with it a $350 light and a $250 radio. All were smashed and all were broken. To add insult to injury the battery power pack that I was using to power the lights went bad so I had no strobes to use. As I was going through this disaster after disaster I was thinking to myself, “thank God this isn’t men’s basketball”. I can only imagine the earful I would have gotten.

All that said the photos came out fairly well. It would have been a little better with the pop that strobes would have added, but I was overall pleased. Dave Lohse and Jeff had a great idea of having players wear either a blue or white jersey. In general the offense wore blue and the defense white. The players also brought their stick, helmet and gloves and were given the option to hold their stick and helmet however they wanted. It was refreshing and contrary to the usual team photos where players are lined up and stand in a uniform manner. We took multiple set-ups, asking the players to change positions each time.

Former North Carolina lacrosse member Dave Werry started Carolina Dreams at the end of his freshman year. The goal was to partner Carolina student athletes with patients from the North Carolina Children’s Hospital. After been pioneered by Werry, the flame has been passed to Michael Munnelly. Today the lacrosse team hosted a few of the patients. They started with a meet and greet in the Kenan Fieldhouse academic center. Players and patients talked, especially about lacrosse which many of the patients did know know a lot about. Maybe a few UNC lacrosse fans were created today.

The players and patients were recognized on the field before kickoff and enjoyed the game from the bleachers.

The team was scheduled to do head shots and an outdoor team photo today. Until today the area had not received any rain since August 26th. Crops were wilting, lawns were crunchy and gardens required daily waterings to survive the drought we’ve been experiencing. On a day when good weather was needed, we of course picked the first rainy day in weeks to do the team photo outside. That said, given the severe drought we’ve had, I can’t complain too much. We needed rain more than we needed good weather. Given the rain, the team photo was rescheduled to next Friday. Jeff Camarati, the UNC photographer, was suppose to do it, but will be with the football team then. So looks like I’ve been drafted to take the photo in his place. That means no outtakes or behind-the-scenes look at the process.

The head shots were indoors in the team room and did not require good weather obviously. The players however, drenched by the downpour as they poured into the locker room, were soaking wet. Ties, shirts and hair all needed time to dry out. Still, many of the players had their picture taken with wet hair and it wasn’t because they were working out beforehand.

Before players had their head shot take by Jeff, they had to first pass inspection by sports information director Dave Lohse. Culprits with crooked or sloppy ties were stopped at the pass and not allowed to have their photo taken. Some like Chris Hunt with a newly dry cleaned shirt and Bobby McCauley were dressed to impress and passed the “Lohse test” with flying colors. Others like Michael Jarvis and Nick Tintle needed some work before getting a pass.

Next week the players will put on their equipment and begin practicing. Until then, weightlifting still remains the order of the day. Originally I wanted to photograph the first day of practice; however, my full-time job has me traveling to San Diego next week from Monday and returning Thursday evening. While I will be able to attend practice on Friday, it won’t be the first one which I wanted to do.

After going through the stations in the weight room coach Gatz called all the players to the middle of the weight room at a time unusually earlier than the normal end time. The players’ instincts told them a big run was in the cards and their instincts were proven correct. The players ran up and down the stairs in the aisle ways of Kenan Stadium. It would have been exhausting on the best of days; but on a hot North Carolina summer day it was worse. But all the players pulled through the endurance exercise and no one stopped before finishing.

Not much to write. Today was a standard weightlifting day. All the routines were different though from the previous day. The strength and conditioning staff seem to have no end to ways to work these guys.

I almost did not go today but decided at the last moment to come out to practice. I’m glad I did or would have otherwise missed a lot of great stuff. When I first arrived at Kenan Stadium, coach Lattimore was writing the following message on the dry erase board:

Upperclassmen do not touch freshman’s stuff!!

Freshmen take care of your stuff. Do not lose, you’ll need them.

The freshmen today were getting their new gear for the upcoming season. New gloves and a new rolling suitcase. And the upperclassmen did come over to check out the new gear. Coach Lattimore helped the frosh with writing their numbers on their new gear with a Sharpie.

The team then headed to the weight room which is just adjacent to the locker room in the field house at Kenan Stadium. Lighting in there was pretty terrible; worse than the Ernie Smith Field House. It was complicated by the nature of the lighting which was very uneven. The inconsistency in light finally led me to putting my camera on “auto” for the exposure. That’s rare for me to do; I’m compulsive about only using my camera in manual mode but the spotty light made that infeasible. Using auto exposure worked for the most part, except I lost an entire sequence of photos of Jack Ryan because behind him were bright lights — an obvious failure mode for auto exposure that I forgot about.

I am continuously amazed by the strength and conditioning staff and the methods for training they come up with. While the general public is surrounded by advertisements of expensive home workout systems like Soloflex and others, the training staff can work out every single muscle in your body with nothing but a wooden box to work with.

During the workout session Chris Madalon said he and his roommates were having a cookout later in the night and were going to watch the NFL’s first game of the season featuring the Saints at Indianapolis. I said to of course count me in.

Some last minute news on the family front almost kept me from going to their house. My dad called around 6pm to say that mom was experiencing pains around the chest and was going to the ER. But mom said she thought she was okay and not to worry. So I went to the player’s house but my mom was front on my mind. She called later to let me know everything was okay and it was not the onset of a myocardial infarction as we worried about.

Chris Madalon, Sean Jackson, Sean Delaney, Hunter Meldman, Ian Morrison and Colin Sherwood all live in this house not far from campus. They put their funds together to buy some burgers, hot dogs and other side dishes. Colin did all the cooking, cooking under no light except the headlights of one the cars they turned out so they could see the grill outside. Food looked actually pretty good and they offered me some. But I ate before coming sense I didn’t want to eat the food they bought.

Funniest moment of the night came with our struggle with a can opener as we tried to open a can of beans. I was getting a good laugh as they tried to use a can opener to no avail. I stopped laughing when I also couldn’t figure it out. The night ended with no one ever able to figure out how to use this can opener. Someone was able to find an “old school” can opener thankfully; otherwise that can of beans would still not be open.

I stayed at their house until the game ended. At half time I got some shots of them playing the xbox. All in all, it was a great day for photos. I had a great time at their place and it was worth every minute.

In the weightroom…

At the player’s house…