Do you shoot?

Here are two of my favorite ones with the flour for All-Area:

 

I dig it. I'd absolutely LOVE the bottom one if it was just a portrait of the guy in back.

 

Yea, I agree. It became too hard to do something with a ball for both players, so the guy in front is kind of just there because we needed them both in the photo. Wish it wasn't so windy that day, you can tell the backdrop is messed up.

 

How'd you set that up lighting-wise? I can't tell if it was indoors or out (Your wind comment has thrown me off completely) and I'd love to try something similar up here someday.

 

The background doesn't bother me. Strangely, I kind of like it. Little bit of depth or something. IDK. Normally that kind of thing would drive me batty (hello, Photoshop!), but it doesn't here.

 

We did it outside, but just barely. The backdrop was fixed into the smaller overhead door fork lifts can go in and out of and everyone was in the shade. Chose outside because in some photos we have the player swinging away to hit the ball and have the flour explode (small backstop is located just a few feet to the batter's pull side to hit into). Only light we had was to stage right. Had an umbrella (don't know if that's the technical term) over it to dull the flash a bit. We had a light on the left side, originally, but the bulb blew out while we were testing the flash.

Also, for the double exposure stuff, I think Sam Baker did a good job of explaining how she did it in this blog post:

http://photos.nwaonline.com/2012/05/nwa-media-track-athletes-of-the-year/

 

Umbrellas (and other modifiers) are used to soften light, and to create more of a wrap, as opposed to the increasingly well-defined shadows caused by hard light.

Just an FYI.

 

Matt, do me a favor and convey to Ms. Baker that I think it's a rather fine series of images. Well done.

 

A couple of nice posts for the crowd to read.

http://thephotobrigade.com/2012/06/great-weekend-three-games-in-three-days-by-brad-mangin/

http://joelhawksley.com/2012/05/21/celebrating-joe-the-end-of-an-era/

That second has a great portrait setup.

 

I'll definitely pass it along.

The backdrop on the Ohio baseball coach shot was perfect.

 

So I don't know if this will work or not but here's a link to my photo portfolio on my LinkedIn profile. I'd really appreciate it if some of you guys could give me some feedback on your impression of my overall abilities as a photographers because my coworkers (Rhody) tell me I suck half the time and am OK the rest but my clients/everyone else say I'm pretty good.

I'm just starting out so all of these photos have been complete luck and, if the link doesn't work, I apologize. Let me know and I'll find another way to put them up.

http://www.linkedin.com/osview/canvas?_ch_page_id=2&_ch_panel_id=3&_ch_app_id=67689360&_applicationId=104096&appParams={%22view%22%3A%22frame%22%2C%22qs%22%3A%22behance_id%3Dpspetrini%22}&_ownerId=123998487&completeUrlHash=FeyE

(I particularly like my fall sports photos but you can check those out and the wedding pictures I've put up there and let me know what you think, I'd appreciate it. Thanks)>

 

One of the worst mistakes one of my former papers made was to get rid of their only photographer and rely on reporters for photos. (They had to cut a position and editor didn't want to lose a reporter.)

As a layout person, half the time I'd just get crap that I'd have run as centerpiece. It was embarassing. It sent the message that the photos weren't as important as the writing.