Game Action Photos & Sports Write-Ups
By Peggy Cox
30 June 2007
How many times have you heard: Such and such youth sports teams gets plenty of coverage in the local news paper and ours doesn't get any? Is there anything you can do about it? There most likely is, especially if you're a parent of one of the participants on your hometown teams.
As a parent, I became involved with the sports photography and ended up covering some of our local youths sports programs, and you can most likely do the same, too.
The first step is to talk to the coaches and ask them if you can try to cover their team/teams and ask for their help in doing the write-up part of it, especially if you don't know what it is all about. Second, contact the sports editor of your local newspaper and advise him/her of what you'll be attempting to do. Don't be afraid to ask them for advise and suggestions. Ask them what they would expect you to be submitting to them, sort of an outline.
Then, all you need is a camera with a zoom lens and start taking those game action photos. The more photos you take, the better chance you have of getting better pictures. That's one advantage of having a digital camera. It's best to use a digital now-a-days, to cut down on expenses, and, for that reason, alone. Having a computer is extremely helpful, too. When taking your game action photos, try to follow the ball at all times. The newspapers like seeing the ball in the photos as much as possible.
Don't stand in one place. If possible, follow the action up and down the sidelines. Try to be ahead of them, the offensive and defensive players on your team, that is, to get their facial shots as well as the action shots.
Combine the write-ups with your game action photos and send them off to your local newspaper, to the sports editor. Don't be surprised if the sports editor edits your write-ups. Don't be alarmed if they do so. They might just change a word here or there, to spice up the game action with verbs, verbs that you never thought of using and associated with the sport. They're the experts and getting paid to do such things. Just think, they can't really make changes to your accompaning photos, except to crop them, enlarge them, or change your color photos over to black and whites when they come out in print in the newspaper.
If you are a computer fanatic, you can do everything on the computer. Even sending everything to the sports editor via e-mails. If not, and you do have a computer, your sports playing offspring might be able to assist you with doing same, especially if their school teaches them about computers. Or your local library might have one that the public is allowed to use. Be sure to tell them what you are doing, too.
Many of the newspapers look for such submissions and appreciate someone taking the time to do them up so more towns can be covered in their newspapers. It helps them with the sales of their newspapers, too. You won't get paid for doing this, but, the newspaper might put you on their free-lance/on-call list of photographers for covering other events in your own hometown, as they did to me.
In the beginning, I would ask the coaches to identify the players by their Jersey numbers to put their names in the papers. Especially the ones scoring, making touchdowns, safety's and the like. You might also notice someone on the sidelines who writes down info, such as how long the pass was, how far the player ran to catch the pass, etc. Ask them, preferably after the game. Also note what quarter or part of the game that the action took place. That helps a lot waith the write-up. Another way to handle that part of the process is to ask the coach for a copy of their roster and, if they video-tape the games, ask to view the tape. Be sure to add the coaches home phone numbers for verification along with your own when submitting all to the newspapers. If it's too much for you to do, team up with another parent. One doing the photos and one doing the write-ups. You can both most likely run up and down the sidelines together.
If you or your coaches are on speaking terms with the coaches from the other teams, you can possibly even get the ID of the players on their teams that are in your photos, too. Another possibility is that the sports editor might have that info, or obtain same from the opposing coaches so that the players on both teams are identified.
The photos you see here are from days past. These photos are actually my "rejects." More or less showing them here so you can see what an amateur photographer can do. Some are rejects simply because they're slightly out of focus. I used a 35 mm manual operating SLR camera with mostly the 28-200 or the 70-300 zoom lens on the camera in those days.
I used speed film, which depended on the weather. On sunny days, 400 ISO would do. On rainy or cloudy days or late evening, 1000 or 1600 ISO would do the trick. As long as you don't plan to have the photos enlarged to over 8 X 10's, those ISO's are safe for using print film. On an automatic digital camera, just put the control to sports/action or the like on your control knob because you want to "freeze the action" and not on "portrait" which will show the motion of running player and most likely blur same.
Good Luck and hope you enjoy taking those game action photos as much as I did. It's more or less the person behind the camera that creates those photos. You don't have to go out and buy the most expensive camera to do so. You just have to know what your camera can and can't do, and put that information to use when being a shutterbug.
I'm leaving the sports photography up to the new breed of photographers with digital cameras in hand that have zoom lenses on them, who probably upload the photos to their computer and do any tweeking of the photos there, if necessary. Plus I passed up 65 agewise a couple of years ago. Could you just imagine a little old lady running up and down on the sidelines and trying to keep up with the youths of today? LOL.
Just remember to follow the ball. Be it a football, a baseball, a softball, a basketball, a soccer ball or whatever, keep your eye on it. That's where the main action will be. Another very important hint and step is to leave the flash turned off.
The camera's flash is distracting to the players and could interfere with their game action performance. With any sporting event, leave the flash off, weather its youths, high school or pro sports, especially if you are up close to the action. Even for pro games, too. But, for a baseball game from the mezzanane, be sure that you are packing an extremely powerful zoom lens, like a 500 MM or higher. A flash from that distance is more or less useless.
If possible, crop your photos, somewhat, to get rid of some of the distractions in the photos.
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