Do you shoot?

[flexmaster33]

I had a D1H at the office, until it crapped out. They weren't going to pay to have it fixed or replaced and bought us a point and shoot to shoot action shots despite pleading that it wouldn't work and we'd be better off fixing the camera bodies (we have two) and lenses (we have a slew of them) or buying a new body.
When I tried the point and shoot and it didn't work, I had to use an additonal freelancer. In like two months we rang up like $800 in freelance payments to one woman. When the publisher saw this, she realized we were right and my two bodies and lenses (two 200 mls, two 300 mls) are being fixed.
Mrs. Rhody and I are pregnant (her more than me) and she wants to get a new camera; I'm going to try and talk her into using our tax refund to get a D7000.

Some advice I've picked up while shooting:

-Layer your photos. You can turn boring shots into nice looking ones by providing foreground, subject and a background.

-Shoot first, worry about what comes out later. I'll take 300 shots at a game and look at them when I get back to the office. I can delete images quickly and usually get 10-20 shots that are usable and maybe 1-5 that are home runs.

-Shoot away from the ball.

-Emotion is better than action 9 out of 10 times.

Hanging with a play after the whistle can lead to good emotion shots...keeping your camera up that extra five seconds can pay off big.

And yes, you can never shoot too many shots and you can never get too close to the action.

 

[Matt Stephens]

Some more stuff, all with a Nikon D1H, no flash, with a 300 ml lens.
EDIT: The shot of the girls soccer game with the cool-looking sky was taken with a 15ml wide-angle we found at our offices. I started screwing around with it and fell in love with the thing. That night I looked up, saw the sky and said "hmm, that might be a cool backdrop."

Those are great, but UMash plays football ?!?!?!

 

[btm]

I'd have to start a prostitution ring like the guy in the other thread to afford good photography equipment

 

[jlee]

My girlfriend became a sports editor and photographer at age 21, without knowing anything about sports or photography. She dumped $1K into gear and shot until she could shoot no more. Now, less than two years later, she's a pretty good photojournalist well on her way to being a darn good one by just trying it and seeking advice from everywhere.

The concepts that have always eluded me are light and depth of field, so I obviously can't get past a rudimentary understanding of photography without them. From a designer/editor's perspective, I really like what you've already posted in terms of composition and moment-catching.

Here's a site you might want to check out, if you haven't already: http://www.sportsshooter.com/

 

[slappy4428]

 

[murphyc]

I echo what UPChip said about shooting and taking notes becoming ingrained. Started shooting at my second shop, have ever since. Almost entirely self-taught, never took a clash or anything. Learned from books, my mistakes and from other photographers. I've never been full-time at a "big" paper with a photographer-only position since I started doing photos in 1999. I use my own Nikon D1H and D70 plus my own lenses. I would love to have a D3 or even a D2Hs but that's not in the budget.
It takes a while to balance taking pics and notes at the same time, but you get used to it. The biggest thing is to get over the fear/mindset/whatever you want to call it that you can only do one or the other, and can't do both at the same time without producing crap. I will admit I'm not the best photographer, nor am I the best writer. But I can take pics good enough to fill a photo page (if we had the room) and at the same time I can crank out some quality stories. I don't say that to brag; I say that because with practice you can be good at both, even if you have to do both at the same time. It's definitely easier to be able to focus on just one, but it's not impossible to do both.
If you look around, you can get a used D1H for about $200, a 50/1.8 for $100 or so, a flash for $100 or less and a 70-300 zoom for probably $150 or so. Better equipment like a D3 and 80-200/2.8 costs more, but you can get a decent starter kit for pretty close to $500.

 

[Pilot]

To me, shooting sports makes covering sports much better. There's no better way to get through a god-awful 26-22 girls basketball game than having photos to focus on. I can't fathom covering something like a cross-country race without having photos to worry about. Running around and finding spots with good light and a good background has got to be better than standing at the finish line with your thumb up your butt.

I use my own D700 and have a pretty nice collection of lenses, but it doesn't take the equipment I have to get workable shots. I did pretty well with a D70s before I upgraded. I shoot all my own stuff, and am sort of a backup photog for the rest of the paper. Probably 35-40 percent of my work now is photography.

 

[Matt Stephens]

This was one last summer before knowing how to work with curves by bringing out the blacks and whites.

And this one is probably one of my favorites ever as far as emotion goes:

 

[Rhody31]

This was one last summer before knowing how to work with curves by bringing out the blacks and whites.

racist.

 

[Matt Stephens]

Oh, and if you ever want to have some fun with Photoshop, take a photo that's a close-up and either blow the crap out of the shadows or have some fun using a high pash filter.

 

[Matt Stephens]

This was one last summer before knowing how to work with curves by bringing out the blacks and whites.

racist.

lol I felt that coming on.

 

[outofplace]

Yes. Badly, but I'm slowly getting better. The only thing that saves me is I already knew when I started that I should take as many pictures as possible and sort them out later.