Lessons

Lesson Info

Sports Photography Basics

I want to welcome you to sports photography Basics with Kevin Geroge. Kevin, once you come on out. Welcome, sir. To creative life. Is this your first time here? All right, fantastic. Welcome to creative life. So Kevin is one of the most sought after photographers, not only the in the United States, but also internationally. And he is one what? I hear a ton of awards from the W p. P I. Is that correct? That's a few. All right. All right. Well, without any further ado, I'm gonna throw to you. Sound great. All right. Well, first of all, I want to thank everybody for being here. I want to thank creative life for having me. Um, gosh, this is believe or not. My first time to Seattle. I've actually spoke in, photographed all over the world. And I've never been on my bucket list of something to do. So later today, I'm gonna go to that market. We're gonna catch a fish so they might want to come with me. We're doing that. Okay. Um, most guys probably know me for my wedding work. You know, I've d...

one a lot of seminars, but people or WPP, I doing weddings and portrait's. But I've always had a deep love for sports. I grew up just loving sports back in the day. Gosh, I used to get the sporting news. I could get a subscription of Sporting News because before we even had cable, I would actually get my sporting news and my Sports Illustrated and I would look at the box scores. That was the only way we could keep track of our favorite athletes, my favorite baseball players, and see how they were doing their box scores. So I would actually religiously look at that. And then I look at the photography. I would look at Sports Illustrated photographers and other magazines, and I'm like, Oh, this is what I want to do That's what actually got me into Photography was looking at sports photographs, Um, and so I've been a sports when I even went to University of Oklahoma because they had a good football team. True story. I love the color red and they had a good football team. So I went there and just shop sports for fun, and it got to the point where my business was going really well with my weddings and portrait's and still is in. I decided one day. You know, I wonder if I could do some sporting events in the Dallas area. You know, that's where I'm from. And so what I did. And I know we're gonna get questions from the Internet and in from you guys in a room. Kevin, How do I shoot college of pro sports? How did I do that? I will tell you my story real quick. I Right now I work for USA Today. Sports images, great people. I love the organization. And here's what I did. I didn't have credentials back in the day. I didn't have credential to shoot any events tohave field access. So what I did is I would actually go down to my local field in local parks and actually find guys they were actually doing pickup games, pickup basketball games and I take my cameras and I would shoot and I'd actually at first I was like, Hey, do you mind if I if I take pictures of you guys shooting, I'm actually just working on getting better. And by the way, if I get anything cool, I'll be happy to email you like sure, Sure. Knock yourself out. So actually taught myself I'm a self taught photographer. Everything I do like my weddings by portrait, my lighting, everything self taught. I believe in being a sponge. I just spun for information. And so I did that. I got there, and then I come home and I look at the magazine. So what are they doing that I'm not doing? And, you know, just trying to figure it out. And then at the Ranger games, I go to Ranger games of the kid and even up to several years ago, well, I didn't have a credential that sit in the stands. And luckily, they let you bring in a camera and lens. As long as you're not blocking any of the people around you, you could shoot. And so I do that I You know, I take pictures here and there and go home, and once again, look at the magazine. See? Okay, that looks pretty good. Or that doesn't look at what Can I work on something? One day I decided. You know what? I'm gonna send in a portfolio to USA Today. So what I did, I actually created a flush mount album. I want to do something different. One thing you have to know about me. I like to do stuff a little bit different. I don't like to do the same thing that everybody else is doing okay to me. I want to stand out in a crowd. So it's like I was standing on album idea that created an image of amalgam. I mailed it in, physically mailed it in. The director of photography called me about three or four weeks after that, and I remember this conversation like it was yesterday. And he's like Kevin, no one has ever, physically male. It's an album. Most people will give us a link to their website to their email, you know, to the online portfolio. This is impressive and he said this to me. I realized you didn't have credentials for these events. I realized you didn't have field access, But you know what storytelling is? Storytelling action is action. So now what? I tell students. Well, I'm speaking if you're shooting peewee level all the way up to NFL level action is action story telling a story telling dejection is dejection. Jubilation is jubilation. If you can tell that story. You will do well in this business. OK? Make sense today, but we're gonna talk about this is interesting. Sports photographer. There's so much we got. Ta go. This is like a week long course, we're gonna throw down into an hour and 15 minutes or whatnot. And each sport by itself has so many specifics. So I'm gonna do is I put together a list of tips and tricks and some basics that helped me go. Honest, I believe from here to here in the industry, with my images and we're going to kind of go over some of those and I'm gonna use stuff that we could use for just about any sport. So I'm not gonna specify just by the sport. In the end, we will kind of strategies based on sports, each particular sport. But what kind of generic level there? But one thing people ask me, they're like, Kevin, aren't you afraid of sharing everything you know and being so open? Are people gonna steal your unique ideas? Still, your techniques and I always answer with a quote that I would say to people a photographer's vision is the fingerprint of their photos and what I mean by that. As I could line up three photographers, I could tell him to shoot one subject. All three of those photographers are probably gonna do something a little bit different. You might have one shooting vertical, maybe one horizontal. What might frame to subject to the left side will not use a slow shutter speed. You name it, they'll do it differently. We all have our own unique vision. God's blessing, my own vision. So I'm not worried about sharing and teaching because I think my visions means totally different in your vision. OK, but I want to try to help you guys as much as possible is possible today. Does he have to have a cigarette working to play a quick little slide show? Then we'll get into the nuts and bolts of how to do this thing. Okay, I want to thank Anna Moto for that slide show is, well, a song. Freedom for the music. One thing I'm still very proud of. I still have some images from there where I wasn't ever credentialed in that slide show. So I still use them in my portfolio. Um, okay, let's talk about equipment because This is the biggest question I get from people wanting to learn to shoot their kids. Would it be a soccer game? Peewee football, Little League, baseball all the way up. What equipment do I need? And so we're gonna go over that and kind of show you why? Right off the top. I'm gonna tell you I'm not sponsored by any equipment company yet, but I'm not. And so I'm gonna be open and honest. I get a little bit in trouble for being a little too honest sometimes. But I'm just gonna tell you what works for me and hopefully you guys, can I get a lot from that? Um, when it talks, Teoh, talk about camera bodies. I think, honestly, any camera body with the frame rate of over five frames per second would be suitable for you. The biggest thing to remember these days is that camera bodies tend to depreciate a lot faster than the lenses. So if you're going to invest in something, I think invest in quality lenses, we're gonna talk about all the lenses I use, but to me, I can't stress that enough just because camera bodies go, you know, every year. They're introducing new and newer, newer and better and better. Better, and the lens is still keep their value. Camera bodies go down in value, so just find a camera. Five frames a second is plenty. I have a canon one DX actually used two of these. And honestly, I was not happy with Cannon several years ago when they had other bodies out there, I was going to switch to something else. And then I finally got the one next in my hands. And to me, I am happiest. Can be this camera by does everything I need It focuses fast is fast a shoot the motor, guys Motorized fast the I s so level if it's in a really dark GM or a dark night game is unbelievable. I've pushed it up to 6400. I've even shot a wedding reception at 10,000 I s O. And it's been wonderful. Um, so you think this is my camera of choice Now with lenses, I like to recommend at least a 300 lands for people starting out to me. If you're gonna have your your kid out in the field, you need to make sure you have enough room, you know you're zoomed in. You don't want to have a real loose photo on a regular basis. Uh, wedding photographers. Sometimes we want to put the bridegroom a little, and I have a big scene that doesn't work for sports photography. We need to see the emotions we need to see the action. Like even when I showed you the slide show, you could see what's going on close up, so I actually would recommend nothing less than a 300. And there's lots of late lenses. There's a 72 300. I believe that Cannon makes it a 4556 Linz. So something like that, I want to show you my main lens first. We're talking some of those. I use the 400 to 8 by Canon. This is a new new version, and I use this for just about everything except basketball unless I'm shooting up in the stands and I'll use it for basketball. But for football, for baseball, for soccer, this is my go to lens. The 400 to 8 and it's really sharp. It's really fast, and it's not nearly as heavy as a previous version. So I use that quite a bit. I was thinking, I may need it to come over and help you with that. You might actually, I just started using. This is a brand new lens I just started using from Cigna. It's a 1 300 lens and it Z, you know, that lends is like about $12,000. This was, I think, a little over 3000. So it's really a great price, and I use it for a couple events last weekend and it's really sharp. It's called the 1 20 into 300 to 8, and it's too late all the way through. So if you guys are looking to get started, this actually is a very high quality limbs for the less of a price. Okay, now, if there was one lens that people tell me, you know, for the rest of my life, if I was forced to shoot with one lens, I couldn't use anything else. What would it be? What do you guys think? 7200? Yeah, every photographer has a 72 100. This is my baby. I will use it for Portrait's for weddings, for sports If you look on the field of the pro sports photographer, everyone has one on least one shoulder. 7 200 it allows me to be a little more flexible where my 400 or even 300 would be a little too tight. On some instances, this will. This will fill you know, 70 and zoom out to 200. I'll be fine. So, basketball, this is my mainland's okay? Is that the stories of before the two ways into to wait all my leisure to eight Great main reason. I say it's to it because sometimes you're in a dark Jim. Sometimes you're at night. It's really doctor lights, especially on a Little League field. I mean, the lights are right in the middle of a field. Well, if I want to shoot somewhere over on first base side, it might be really dark. So I always like I said, invest in the lenses, spend a little more morning, get the 28 lenses if you can. Okay, and for lenses. Lastly, I love my 16 or 35 it's a wide angle lens because four features like if I want to get stadium overall shots even some action. Or maybe it is a different point of view. Everyone else's shooting tight, but what I want to be wanna be different, right? I might shoot wide. Does no one else is shooting wide, so keep that in mind and everyone has a 16 35. I know you guys that shoot, but everything has a 35. Let me show you some examples. This is a 400 you can actually see how close The beautiful Boca. Beautiful, blurred background. This guy just intercepted the ball. Wonderful reaction, That's what My 400 OK, 7200. It's, um, you know, just he's just dunking the ball, but it's perfect. I shoot vertical 1700 works just fine in 18 16 35 It. Even though it's game action, I can still capture it. And what happened in this particular scene is that the Nationals park I saw the sunset. Oh my gosh, that's a great sunset. I want to capture that. I couldn't capture my 400 obviously and I 7 200 Still, it doesn't look nearly as good, so I just whipped out the white angle and got a beautiful shot to capture the whole scene. OK, Any questions on that on lenses? Okay. Mono pod. If you're gonna be a sport shooter, you're gonna need, um on a pod, okay? And I want to show you exactly how I use these. I usually have my heaviest lands, which is my 400. It's usually right here on my mind. A pod. Okay. You can handhold. Yes, you can. However, at the end of the game, you're gonna be like this. We don't want to be doing that. I want to, you know, be shooting 10 20 years down the line, and I don't want my back to give out. And so I'll always have a mono pod, and then I'll have my 7 200 on my shoulder. Okay? Tripods usually aren't allowed. And also, the rafting while I can't use a tripod strike was usually aren't allowed at ballparks from bottom. Okay, The next thing is actually limbs bag. I'm not one of the big believers in. You'll see some sports photographers that have all these belts all over. They've got water, boils, I've got lenses, they got stuff, is just like a big mess of stuff. And you're walking around and floppy one, too. It's not just mobile, so I want to be low mobile, so I actually have an undefined lens bag. The beauty of it. It has lands, pouches. You can actually put a Lindsay. I'll put my 16 to 35 in here. I'll put a bottle of water in here, put some CF cards in here. I might put some gaffer's tape and even has a place for your laptop. Put my laptop if I'm transiting from the field, there's lots of purposes for this, and then it just zips up and I have it on the other shoulder. So one shoulder, 7 200 other shoulder mono pod I thought I need okay and I'm good to go already. Any questions on that? Good. All right, extenders are very important, like we mentioned before. Some of you guys that can't afford the big lenses. Now there's 14 There's two x two x extenders. Feel for to put those on your lenses. You know, if I put that on my 400 now with an 800 not granted, you're gonna lose a couple stops. But during a day game, it doesn't matter. You can shoot fine at F eight. Okay, in the 14 I use that quite a bit because I only lose one stop. So on my 28 lenses, that makes them F four lenses. So now my 300 becomes what for? 20. Okay, so that way to get extra read should not have to spend the money to buy a $12,000 lens If you're just starting out, Okay, Reindeer. Every sports photographer needs rain rain gear just because it's gonna rain on you. Um, no matter what, Whatever. Your kid's soccer game, because they don't stop soccer for rain, do anything. They stop sport. They stop is really if it lightnings if his lightning's going on or if it's baseball, everything else usually plays through football, soccer in you name it. So I actually have a little hoodia. Weird's a little waterproof foodie with waterproof pants. And then I have a little ranger, goes over my camera gear and in your set. So always keep that in mind. And I do use a think tank security bag. This is what it looks like. The thing I like most about it is because I travel a lot it goes on to the airplanes. It actually fits in the compartments. This is the airport security to version two and has three lakhs. So I You know, these days where you have to look for your be safe with your equipment, this is actually has three lakhs. Where can lock it up and make sure all my equipment is safe. You know, the zippers as well as the back. Um, and it is very sturdy. I've traveled all over. Had this for years now, and so I can't recommend him enough. Okay. People asking what kind of compact flash cards I use. I use SanDisk, extreme cards, and I use the fastest ones. I confined because I want I want the pictures taken fast. I wanna be able to download fast, okay. And things that every photographer should have. Gaffer's tape cleaning cloth and toolkit. You never know when you're gonna need that stuff. And I'm gonna talk more about gaffer's tape. I'll use it with my remote when we get into some stuff here and a little bit. Any question on equipment for we go on a technical stuff. Yes, sir. A couple questions from the internet and I have a couple questions. I'm gonna start off with the Internet, and it is B. K. G. Photo wants to know how many cameras do you carry to shoot a sporting event? That's a good question. I honestly like to carry to no more than three. I used to carry three, and a lot of photographers still carry three. They'll carry their big lens or 400 on one body, will have their standing 200 another body, and they might have a wide angle around their neck. But to me, I'm still kind of like Oh my gosh, a lot going on. So I used a lens back, and I'll put my wide angle in my lens bag if I need to slop out my 7200 with my wide angle. It's an easy slop, so I usually carry to personally. And what was the question? Oh, and then from me. I know when you're shooting weddings, sometimes it's golden to have almost a mirror of your equipment back up with you. Do you do that in sports? Is why do I have like so I've got a couple buddies and I also have a couple back of bodies I usually keep in my bag. Okay, Great. Just locked up in the media room or wherever I'm shooting or in my car and my car. I've got a whole bunch of stuff in there. Great to go back to the car and get my rain gear. I'll do that. Uh, right. Not so. Anything else on equipment from you guys? Okay. All right. Technical info. OK, this is important because I get tons of questions on this in the question. It comes just like this. Kevin, during the day, I got these beautiful shots in my boy Joey on a soccer field. He's in focus. I love it, but at night, he's all blurry. Why is that? Okay, One first of all, we talked about the lenses in the 28 versus four and whatnot. Shutter speed is a biggie. I try to keep my shutter speed at a minimum on anything I shoot sports lives 1 of a second. Okay, 1 802nd is the magic number. Honestly, I like to go to 1 12 51 1000 of seconds. Where? My happy places. But I could say you could get away with it at 1 800 of a second. That's the minimum I will do. These cameras are so good now. If you need a bump your eyes so up, then go ahead and bump your eyes so up there's no there's no problem with it. I could shoot up like said 6,412,000 eyes. So I wanted something to get my shutter speed with a decent photo. 1 of a second. I'm good to go. Um, I like this personally. Shoot around F 28 F four. I don't usually like to push it past that. So if I haven't extender like on my 400 I could still use my one for extender and shoot. Um, at a four, it turns into an 800. Okay, that's a long reach, so I could do that. I do that with football game that they're on the other side of the field. You can do that. You could get nice tight frames filling the frame. There is a saying that photo journalists love to say, and it's called tight is right, and to me it's very true, especially in force in sports. You want to kind of fill the frame with the action. You don't want it to be too loose like we mentioned before about the wedding images. I'll just show you a quick example. The photo on the left You can see how the coaches there's a lot going on. I shot a little too loose. Honestly, I shot really lose. I could see just distracting elements from the players in the background. Um, other coaches the photo on the right. It's where I shot a lot tighter, and you can see how we have a beautiful background blur and he fills the frame. It's amore. It's a better photo. No player. Clear, simple, better photo, um, shooting styles. I personally, if I'm outdoors during the day, I like to shoot a V mode, which is aperture priority mode. Main reason being is because we can't control the clouds coming over the sun. And as luck would have it when I'm shooting, the clouds are always gonna come in and out of the sun. If I'm always fiddling around with my dials, I'm not concentrating on the action that I need to be concentrating on. I want to be just focused on the action and focus on telling the story, not the clouds. So I'll set my camera that a V mode, and I'm trusting that today's technology can make my camera just the way it needs to. I'm paying enough money at today's technology. You'd better do that. And it does. Okay, so I'm shooting a B mode, not having to worry about at all. Now I'll dial up and down my exposure compensation when I shoot Navy mode just because it needs to be under exposer. Overexposed a bit just because the camera might get foolery every now and then. I will do that. Now if we're talking a night game or a game in the gym, a basketball game, I'm shooting fully in manual mode, and once again, I'll have my shutter 1 800 of a second or 1 1/ of a second on 28 or F four. But it sent its not moving. Not there's no clouds gonna change if I'm outside in in light light. Coming down the lights can always be the same, so I don't need to change my settings. Makes sense, Okay? One thing that our customers, our cameras have built in. Now that I love is called custom modes, and I'll give you a perfect example how I use that cause. I use it quite a bit on my camera body. It's C one C two C three what it allows me to do. For example, See one. I've got what I'm shooting the field. Let's just use baseball as an example. I'm shooting the field. I've got my 400 aimed at second base. I've got it lit perfectly. I mean, 1 800 of a 2nd 1 of a second to it were there. Okay, something's going on in the dugout. Well, there's no lights in the dugout. Oh, my gosh, I got to capture that. So I have my camera or my 7 200 whip out my 1700 because it's got the same settings I switch over to see to what C two allows me to do is pre program a sitting. So I have that set to maybe manual or even 80 mode. I have isil 4 5000 because it's dark in there, OK, and the shutter, its going automatically pick the shutter for the Navy mood, so they can all make the switch bouquet. Now you go back to field, see one boom, boom, boom. You're not filling around with your settings. So I know a lot of people don't know about custom modes, but learn it because it's so easy to go back and forth and you do any sport. Most of the fuel sports at night. The field is what's lit, where the coaches and players are is dark and I'll get out. Okay, so I'm gonna change my modes. Just it is just a simple switch. C one C two and you're not having to deal with that. Any questions on that? Customers? I do have a question not specifically on custom Mo's, but for your meat Oring. Do you do spot metering todo? Don't you think about for meeting most? I like to use the evaluative mode. I never use spot meeting, and it's not saying you can't just have always used evaluated and I've never had a problem with it. So I just like your relative okay, and auto focus. Auto focus. Yes, everything's auto focused And are you and then how do you? What would auto focus metering are you using as far you use that I use when I'm shooting, I'm gonna use full auto focus from the camera, never use manual focus, OK, except on a remote. And we'll talk about here in a little bit on. And I'm also in a survival mode. I'm not gonna shoot in one shot mode. If you're shooting one shot mode, you're in trouble. Something she's modes like attract the action and I'm shooting continuous mode. Okay. And one thing I want to talk about here in a little bit is on continuous mode. I've got it to 10 frames a second. Like I said, if minimum five frames a second, you can get away with one thing I don't do I don't I shoot like this. I don't go using like a machine gun. I don't do that because one if that isn't out of focus, you gonna eat that whole series out of focus? I want to be recomposed. Shoot, recompose, shoot, shooting on which in short bursts and usually I kind of always seem to take the first shot I take. Usually, that's the one that always seems to be the one that I go for it. I kind of just time it. It's all about timing and anticipation. We're gonna talk about that here in a second. Let's touch upon the rules and regulations just because I think it's very important. Just because you have a son or daughter playing in a soccer game and you have a great camera and a great lens doesn't mean you could be on the field. Okay, I've actually heard stories where parents have gotten their team disqualified because they were in a position they shouldn't be in. Not only can you get him disqualified, but you also jeopardize the safety of the players, the coaches, the referees. Where was involved? Um, my advice to you is get the proper credentials, go to the administrators, go to the coaches, go to whoever you need to to get proper credentials. The last thing you want to be is the person got your kids is qualified to get your team disqualified. Okay, I can't stress that enough, and it does happen. I've heard several stories lately on everything is you know, if you're sharing a sideline or even just a media room or wherever What other photographers Don't be a jerk. Be nice. Treat them like how you expect to be treated. I'll give you several examples. I've had a huge newspaper photographers that forgot to charge the battery. And I am I got an extra battery. Okay, you know what? Here. I got one. I'll borrow it. I had another photographer. His compact flash card reader broke and he needed a download. Images. So I let him borrow one of mine if they're shooting. If you got 45 you guys in a row, you know, could be cognizant of where they're pointing their lenses. If they're all pointing this way, don't go over here and block them, you know, and kind of work with each other. And so I'm always about that about the sharing cause I know what you think. I'm gonna need something my lens might break, and I might need to borrow one. I let another photographer borrow wide angle the other day just because he didn't have one with him and he had an idea for a shot. So here you go. I got one about using it. It's in my limbs bag. What? Did you say? Something? I happen to me. Okay, So just have good etiquette with other photographers and be friendly to everybody. I try to be. So, um, it just makes the whole working environment a lot better. Know the rules of the stadium, and this goes for any level of sport. Whether you know, except from Little League all the way up everywhere is different. Where Ugo and some places have rules like the photographers aren't even allowed to be on the field like during a baseball game, usually in a baseball game. Most places were allowed to go on the field, walk across, go to different spot and stay well. There's some stations where you can't go on until you have to actually go around into the stadium and back around. Well, you don't know that unless you find out ahead of time and you'll get your credential revoked. You'll get dirty looks if you break the rules, and that goes for anywhere. So before I go shoot any stadium at any level, I always find out before I'll call ahead. I'll talk. Try to talk to a photographer that might have worked there before, try to call the school's Hey, what are the rules? Where the guidelines I need to be sure of before I photographed there. Okay. Question? Yeah, about that. So, um, I've only shot a fuse for games of basketball and football. And can you tell me between those two sports specifically, is there any kind of standard for you need to park and stay in the same place or if it's okay for you to move around? Or is that a good question? And usually what I've found is usually the first come first serve basis, and we'll talk when I talk strategies of where I prefer to be when I'm shooting on those sports for basketball, usually, unless it's a big playoff game, something like that. They have a sign seating. Usually it's first come, first serve, and I actually use a little camping chair, though the ones that are inflatable and I just put my camping cheer down. I get to get in probably 2 to 3 hours before the college or pro game, two out, 23 hours before and just put my camping chair in a spot I want to sit on. And usually for basketball. It's behind the goal line. The baseline there. I'll just put it there. Go do what I gotta do, and people know that. That's my spot. Okay, now, when they have a science, see, and I see it's where they put you for football, really, there isn't football. They just have lines around. I'll draw a diagram later. We'll go over where you can shoot from. But it's around that usually for 25 or 20 all the way around, depending on what you're shooting. And, um, you're free to walk around anywhere in football. There's no no particular where you have to be. But I'll talk about where I like to shoot. I can't talk about no sport inside out. This is this is to be is very important because a lot of people there's a lot of casual shooters out there that don't exactly know all the rules of the sport. And to me, this is very important because if you want to create great photos, you need to know the ins and outs and all the rules. All the little things that might happen during a sporting event, insane with situations. And I'm actually going to show you and teach you about a situation I had last year. This was TCU actually played Kansas now the story behind this. If Kansas was very highly ranked, they were probably number one, number two in the country. TCU was not a very good basketball team. Okay, so we got in there and I was current for yesterday and we all expected blow up. So we're shooting the game. The first half, it's really close. So I goto transmit my images in the first half. TCU my been up by one or two. I can't remember. And so I transmit some images. I come back and all of my photographer friends. Yeah, I can just gonna come out, you know, just just got blown out the second half. It didn't happen. It's actually a close game, and TCU has the lead. It continues that way. Then I'm thinking of myself. There's two minutes left in the game. I'm thinking, Oh, my gosh, this have a chance to be the most monumental upset of the season in college basketball? What do I have to do to cover this until this story, So to myself, I said, Okay, Kevin, first of all, we have to get celebration. I know when that buzzer hit zero these teeth you guys are gonna go nuts because this doesn't happen here in Kansas is not gonna be happy. They're gonna be dejected, is I'll get out so I could get that photo. Secondly, I have to get the leading score. And this goes for any level of sport you're shooting. I have to get the leading scorer because he's gonna be the star. You know, any stories that come out, it's gonna be about him. And then third, I'm thinking to myself, Oh, my gosh, all the students are gonna rush the Florida gonna make this a mosh pit because this doesn't happen here. It's a big deal. Okay, so the buzzer hit zero, I think baseline, I'm seeing What I see is right when you see the very top picture, Number 21 raises his and I got it. I got, I got I took the shot. I love this shot because number 33 the leading score is the one lifting your shirt going crazy like this. The Kansas guys walking off, all dejected with all in one photo. Okay, that tells my story. So now I'm like, OK, where's my whiting? I put my 300 up actually, right before I shot. This put my 300 because I didn't want to run around with a 300. I wanted to have my 7200 and my wide angle. So I've got my standing. 200. I got my white England. Where's 33 were 33. I'm looking for the crowds. Russian acquire. I'm finding 30. I stick to 33 I'm in the mosh pit. I'm like, OK, where is the where the fuck I find him? Luckily from students lift him up on their shoulders. Shot bottom left. I take a couple shots. Boom. I got it, I got it. So then I'm like, Okay, now I gotta go climb up stairs. I want to climb up the stairs to kind of capture an overall. Of all the students on the floor, that's the bottom, right? For everyone else's Dallas, there's no traffic. So I go up there and, uh, I did it. So my buddy called me man. Did you see the game? You were at the game? That's cool. You know, high, find my buddy limit. When the buzzer went off, we were just happy. We're just That's all I can tell you that you would have second your high fiving. But you know what I was thinking? I wasn't even had time to even think I was thinking about it. I get this, I gotta get this. I gotta get this. This is how it ran. ESPN on their main page ran the top left corner, as did USA Today. On their main page of the upset, Yahoo Sports used a close up of 33 on the players arms for their main shot. And then CBS Sports is another shot I took of more dejection of Kansas players. I was able to tell that story in that split second. So that's I mean, I learned situations. It's not just about seen what's out there shooting it. It's knowing the sport, knowing what you have to cover to tell a good story. Make sense. Any questions about that? Do you think? Okay, tendencies all play. All players and coaches at any level have quite a bit of tendencies, and to me, it's my job to learn what they are. You might have that killing a Little League team, that he's the hothead, you know he's got a temper tantrum when he strikes out he's gonna throw his hat, he's gonna be upset. Those air photos to be made. OK, you've got the one. Kid is the happiest kid ever. He's always been decelerating. That's a photo made. It's not just about the action. Sometimes it's about telling the story. You know, habits baseball players when they strike out. Some remember Bo Jackson back in. They would sometimes break a bat across his knee. That's a photo, Okay, they'll throw back. They'll throw hats and Rick Pitino. Oh my gosh, Coaches are great. They're always emotional. You know, there's some. They're just extra emotional will go crazy. Saul. Just look at him every time there's a call, a bad call, and it's just a great photo. Signature moves. They all have them in any sport at any level. I've got basketball players. You know they'll do the three point. They'll do the three goggles. Israel popular Now when they hit a three pointer dances any level peewee football man, these guys are gonna do a little dance, you know, when they sacked a quarterback and rituals baseball players of the most superstitious. There's lots of lots of pictures that won't even step on the chalk lines. When I come out, they'll jump over it. The lowest point to the sky. If they hit a home run, you name it. They'll do it so kind of get to know the players on the team's you're covering to find out what their idiosyncrasies are, what their rituals are, what their habits are. Um, you'll get some great photos out of it. I have a whole series of major league players blowing bubbles. I might do a book on it. I think it's just fun for me. It's a game within a game. They all do it, you know, there blow bubbles and it's to me. It's just a fun shot. You know Adam Jones always have the Bill Tree always had. So its tendency. I know which players have bubbles in which we're gonna blow bubbles, the silly stuff like that into Spain, moments to soccer, you guys that covers soccer at any level. Oh my gosh. After they score a bill, it's like party time. You know, some guys will do current real. Someone will go sliding. That was their photos to be made. I mean, you can't I I love covering soccer just because of all of the expression, all of the emotions that come out when you shoot baseball, game winning home runs. You know the teams are just gonna jump out of the dugout and celebrate like there's no tomorrow, you know? So it's great moments to capture. This was one from the Elite eight. This was Michigan and Kansas Cowboy Stadium last year, and this is actually from a remote camera, which I'm going to show you guys here in a little bit. What happened here just to set it up is Michigan was down by three points with not that much time left, and Trey Burke of Michigan hit a three pointer from a mile away. I mean, we're talking 30 feet out. It was a long shot, nailed it, sent the game into overtime, and I'm actually I'm actually on the baseline behind that referee. And so I'm actually fighting with the referee to get a clean shot, and I did. I got a clean shot of imputing it, um, but I have a remote camera on the side. During the play out of the basket, determine you're allowed to put remotes on the floor on the side, so I had it there, but I kept shooting because as I shoot my camera promotes going off to on my other camera and I'm captured. I'm praying to God that these are in focus because I see him celebrating point into the other side of the crowd and I like pleasing. So I'm shooting, shooting, shooting. This is the photo that came out, and I want to give a special thanks to Bob Result Office because he actually taught me this before. I never knew when you shoot Bob for guys a little Bob. Bob has been a Sports Illustrated photographer ever, and he's He's the CEO of USA Today Sports. But, he told me, Always have the scoreboard in when you set up a remote, especially a wide angle remote, because you never know when the shot's gonna make you tell a story. Well, I have it in there. You can see the score clearly. It's tired. It's going in overtime in the celebration. So it's to me. It's the shot I really love from last year. Same thing with them. Coaches back. The coaches think about this. If you have a penalty or a foul during any part of a ball game. No matter what you're talking, one coaches will be extremely happy. One coach is gonna be really upset. There is no need to just look at the back of your camera. Nothing's going on. Wait for next play. Have your camera pointed at one of the coaches. Usually the one that's upset for a better photo. This is actually I took it last week. What happened here is one of the Oklahoma players got thrown out of the game for a hit. They thought it was a target of new targeting room. They've gotten football. They thought that he hit helmet to helmet. Well, he didn't. So Bob Stoops is yelling. Look, look at the scoreboard. Look at the scoreboard that he did not have, You know, illegal hit. Well, it's a picture, right? So he's upset. So instead of just goofing around, I have my cameras on bottom so bad and I'm getting the shot and I love that photo. You have a question I saw. Are you gonna go into a little bit more about remote? Yes. I'm gonna go through the whole set up of remote. Thank you. Because they think people were learning about remote. Yeah, well, I also saw the shot that I love in your beginning from above the basket that had to have been a directly above Birdseye. That must be talked about in the most remote. Great. Thank you. It's real scary, but I will talk about that one. Can I ask a question from earlier? Kevin, would you mind? Sure. So Jock asked. Have you ever been hit by an athlete in action? And are there actual safety concerns to consider when shooting sports photographer? Yes, there are dangerous todo I'll talk about when I talk about how this is like when I shoot football for sure. Okay, Come close. I haven't been nailed yet. I have a lot of friends that have been drilled. Baseball is really bad sometimes. So these days I mean the ball, you have no warning and get nailed. So I've come close for football. I almost got run over last week and the week before, but I luckily they went right to the side of me. One thing I do do for people who don't know how to get out of the way, I'll talk about it a little bit. I get that. I'm usually little loader ground, but I just would curl up in a ball or kind of keep my eyes open and move out of the way. Those guys are a lot more agile than I am. So if you don't just have a stationary subject, they're gonna jump over you. You know they're not gonna run right into you, Hopefully, but yes, and I will go into detail about that. Great. A couple more moments. Notice situation again. You know, it's one of those things. Like in baseball. For example, what's the count that people steal bases on the most? It's two balls, one strike. So usually when I have that and I know I have a fast runner on first base, my cameras no longer going to be on the batter, I'm gonna kind of focusing on second base. So what happened here, Leon? A smarter. The Rangers. He loves to run. I mean, he's running a ton this year. He got on first base, so I'm ready at second base. And as soon as I look out at cornerback, I've seen run and I'm they're focused. I'm ready aiming right at second base, and I got a great reaction. Picture number 17. Swipe them, Mr Tag and he goes on the boat out there. Look at the umpire saying safe and you always go. No, I'm out. He's out, You know, I mean, so it's a good photo. No situations. Third and long And football, they're not going to run the ball, you know, 80% of the time, they might there, pregnant through the bonds that are running. So no, you're situations. Know the game on. You know, if a team is trailing in basketball, they're down two points with two seconds to go. Okay? Where they're gonna do, you know, they could go for a 32 win. They might try to tie it up. You just try to know your scenarios on where to be and what to shoot. Want to look for? I'm big into looking for unexpected stuff, like like like I mentioned earlier. This is just a regular season game. I saw the player at the end of the game. Usually when you're looking for a reaction of the quarterback of the coach of the corner of my eye, I saw this player jumped up in the stands and is partying with the fans and the band. I'm like, That's a nice photo. And I've got the players and the coaches arms and I kind of frame him in the middle of it is just something a little bit different, right? I'm always looking for unexpected moments cause they make photos to you know, I got a tip that Barkley was gonna write. Charles Bock has been riding on a horse. Thio Thio, TNT analyst t the game in Oklahoma City. So I was out there looking for and sure enough, here he comes. This pictures run all over the place, Let me tell you. Okay, now we can talk some stuff, okay? These are actually Kneepads, which you can get at Home Depot. Lowe's doesn't matter. I must tell you what I dio. It's gotta strap it on. I'm wearing jeans. I really have shorts on or whatnot. But see here, I'll just put him on just real quick. It's just goes on like this. Just Velcro is on nice and easy. You just mentioned you usually wear shorts when you short. When you're 105 degrees out there in Texas. Yeah. So sometimes I'll wear shorts if I can wear jeans, all wear jeans, but really shorts. Okay, So I put my knee pads on like this in the main reason being, I want to shoot especially. I'm shooting soccer football. I want to shoot is loaded the ground as possible. Why is this? We want our athletes toe look like titans toe look like gladiators. All right. We don't want to look like little little kids. And so imagine shooting a peewee football team and you're standing up shooting down on him on the players. They're not gonna look larger than life. They're gonna look like little kids. You're not gonna see their reactions in their expressions. You can get their helmets. You're not going to see their faces. Okay, by getting down low. Now, all of a sudden, I'm here. My 1700 I'm here making them larger than life. That's what we want. That's what makes it epic photo this I took two weeks ago. Now this running back is diving for the end zone. Now he doesn't have a Superman vertical leave ways way up there. I'm shooting this like this down at the ground shooting. So when he jumps and dies, Now he looks like a superhero, right, crossing the goal line. Another thing by being low. What it does is you guys know you guys photograph that all these fields, especially little E or high school, feels there's a lot of distracting elements. There's a lot of sign is there's some parked cars there might be like try whatever it is. It's horrible. So by getting low, I can clean up a lot of those backgrounds, Okay, cause I might just have the player, the players and focus there. And then I got maybe a bright sky. What I might have a wall or building. It's a lot cleaner photo. Okay, does that make sense that the five star tip right there getting low? I mean, it's simple, and it might seem simple, but it really will improve your photography. When I see photographers just standing the whole time, the whole game for me, it to me. I think it's lazy one, because I don't think you're gonna get the impact of the photos that you can normally get any questions on that while I'm undressing here, I'll throw a two hour. If you don't like baseball, that is it tougher to get lower. Can you even ruin baseball? You can stay pretty low. Baseball? Actually, no, because they really have wells on each side and you really about field level, so you're plenty low. They have dugouts where the players are. That's usually underground, and usually where the photographers are on field is about the same level. So, no, you're fine. Perfect. And Kevin, A lot of questions about all sports where you're focusing, Where's your focus on the good question? My focus. What? I usually use the thinner. I'm right on the center. I usually use, like the four points around the center, on my camera to focus on my server mode. And what my Canon one DX, they actually have different focus most depending on what sport you're shooting. There's a guide on Cannons website that actually shows you if you're shooting gymnastics, use this mode. If you shouldn't football use this moment, you just soccer use this mode. So I've been playing around a lot of most. But when I'm focusing, I usually have the center point and in the four points around it, because what I use okay, so you're and you're aiming for that for the action, the ball, the action player's helmet or chest. That's what they're looking for you. One thing like I'm into before I shouldn't short bursts and not machine gun style. Okay, that's really important. Especially if you want to make sure you keep your focus. Because if you if you have that machine gun style, you're gonna miss out if it's a lot of focus, Okay, One strategy I use and I have, Yes, I have been burned by this before, but I've also created some real hero shots from it before is I don't believe in sticking with the pack. Obviously from what you had said earlier, if this there's of safe places and we'll talk about I'm here in a little bit of where photographers like to be during certain sporting events, they're safe because that the percentage of the good shots are gonna be there. Well, my rationale is if I get the safe shot and I'm with 30 other photographers getting the safe shot, how is that gonna differentiate my work? If an editor is looking at my work after, he's gonna have 30 of the same type of shot from the same angle anyway to choose from. What if I'm on a different side or a different place and he sees my shot? Whoa. I haven't seen that angle before. I'm using this one, right, Because they don't want to have the same thing over and over. They don't want to run the same image another magazine ran. They want something unique. So I always try to not stick with the pack and try something different. And yeah, sometimes I don't play the percentages and I get burned. Sometimes I'll be okay. I missed the shot because it happened in the safe spot, But a lot of the times I get something really unique that no one else has. Okay, so that's that's what I want to kind of tell you guys. Um see here. Ah, let's talk remote. This is this is a fun thing. This is a fun topic. I know. We're gonna have a head on this one. Uhm okay, First thing before we talk about and I show you all the remote stuff, um, is there is get permission. Okay, this is very important. Especially gonna mount something up anywhere in an arena I use at any level, even in weddings for your wedding photographers. There's a lot of churches that don't allow us to shoot at the front of the altar. I will set up a remote camera. I'm whispering because I don't want you to tell until I write my secret, especially church ladies. But you can actually set it up on the altar and fired off remotely. Didn't even know what's coming from, so get permission to use it. Okay, now let's talk about it. I know 80% of the viewers and 80% of people do not even know what this is. And I say that because whenever I give seminars, I asked who does with the magic armies, and not many people raise your hand If you guys want a magic armies. Nobody knows what a magic armor This is the cliffs invention for remote camera photography. I think what this is called is a variable friction magic arm by Manfredo. Now what this allows me to do as you can see every part of it moves. It's almost like a little Gumby type thing. I mean, every part of it moves. This is where the camera goes on. It's a camera plate camera to simply screws on. Tighten it up. Okay, this is a super clamp. Super Clamp. Do want anywhere you want it to be mounted to, so it's a backboard stanchion. You do it there. If it's on a baseball fan somewhere, you just put the defense. You tighten the screw. The beauty of the variable friction arm is when you tighten it up, tightening right now, everything titans. So nothing moves. Okay, so, however, were configuration. You need to get your camera set. It's tightened. Its not moving now. Another thing I dio when I mount my camera like this, let's say I had a bar here and my cameras here. I will also wrap a safety cable around it, like what I get from Home Depot's alos for like five bucks that could hold up the £200 DJs. If you guys have, like deejay speaker cos they all have speaker wire, it'll hold it for about £200. And I do this because if during a game let's play baseball, Ah, ball comes, nailed my camera or nails the magic arm and something happened where it fell down. It's just going to dangle on my safety cable. This hasn't happened yet. Knock on wood, But well, just dangle that way. No one's in jeopardy. There's no players getting hurt. Nothing's gonna go wrong. It's gonna dangle. Okay. Okay. When I'm setting up my cameras for I'm sitting at my cameras for remotes, I'm always gonna manually focus this. Let's just use an example. Let's use a soccer remote behind the net. Let's just say that. So I've got my camera down. I'm gonna pre focus it on a spot, Actually, no. What? I actually have a slide. Let's do in baseball. This will work actually a little better. Okay. The shot to the left here is my remote camera in a dugout. I'm just gonna set the stage for you guys is a baseball game. The Rangers airplane today is I think, a year or two ago I don't remember I wanted is a big game playoff implications. So I want to put a camera with a wide angle set to right where the manager would celebrate with a player. Okay? And I'm thinking late in the game if something happens, I want to be able to capture a shot of the player coming with the manager, maybe the other players celebrating. So I'm pre focused ahead of time. Usually have to set up your remote cameras well before the players or even on the field. So usually for a night game, it's gonna be during the day. Okay, So what I do is I'll have my camera said toe aperture priority, because obviously the daylights gonna change. Okay, so I have an aperture priority. Probably about F s, 63 because I don't want to put too late. I don't want to have it on one little spot. I kind of want to capture the whole scene. So we're talking I'm putting it. I so 2000 even though it's Brighton today, just because I know the day I'm not worried about I'm worried about the night shots. So as we get lose, light is going to be better for my shutter speed. Also, the shutter can go down on average private. It could maybe go down to a 400 of a second. But I'm not moving. It's still it's like being on a tripod, so it's gonna be OK. OK, so I pretty focused. I put my pocket wizard. I use the plus threes for these so they have long range. They have multiple channels you can see. I have my magic arm and my safety cable on the rail. My safety cable actually goes through my camera strap and my pocket wizard and keep anything were to hit it. It would be safe. Okay, so I manually focus it. It's all good to go. I taped down with my gaffer's tape. Let me show you my 16 30 16 35 right here. So I go ahead and put on manual focus. It's pretty focused. I will put a piece of gaffer's tape on top, so it's not gonna move. It's going to stay in manual focus, Okay, cause I don't need anything to change what happened because I'm shooting in the other dugout shooting the Rangers. The game actually went into extra innings, is luckily have it and number 14 got the game winning hit or scored a game room and I can't remember now. But this shot was captured with my remote camera, and it's a lot of ESPN ran from the same set up pretty cool. Any questions? I know we had a lot of remote talk. Yeah. Sorry. I'm maybe missed. How do you How do you exactly fire it? Okay, how do I fired? I actually have these gizmos called Pocket Weather. Plus threes. I have one on my camera, which is a transmitter in one. Plugged into the other camera by the sink Port with a C chord for the receiver as I fire my camera in my hands is automatically gonna fire this camera. So I've got two cameras going at once, OK? Or I could take it off the camera or take this off my camera, just press the button and it'll fired. If I don't want to both go off at the same time. The cool thing about these pocket wizards is that it? Have a little button here. A little trigger. You can actually put your camera to sleep or not sleep. Most of our cameras have a sleep mode in mind. You lose. That's like two minutes or four minutes. Um, what that means is, if it's if it set off, then say two minutes expires. Well, the cameras was gonna shut off. Okay? And then when I fire it, it's gonna take a little half a second toe. Wake up. Well, I might miss the moment I missed a spot. The shot. So I'm gonna leave it on with cameras. Always alert. So as soon as I shoot, it's always gonna be awake and shooting, OK? Make sense. So basically, you're getting a mirror every time you hit your every time you shoot a shot during the game, my other can rather camera's gonna give you correct. Have you ever gotten anything completely random? That just appeared? You really I didn't know that you were going to get you get You get a lot of wasted shots because sometimes there's, like nothing going on, but I'm so shooting over here, but it's still gonna fire it. So that's why I'm saying sometimes I know some Tatars will actually take it off of the camera and hand. Hold it. So if I'm shooting over here by time I come over here, I could just hand holding press it and fire it as opposed to using my other camera to fire it. Got you. Do you use any type of light modifiers using a flash note? No letting it all and you're not allowed to use lighting in the reporting of its great perfect Thank you. The main reason. Think about if you want a baseline of a basketball game basketball player, dribble to you, flash low. You know you can't do that. Yeah, you'll get kicked out right away. Yeah. Question. Um, is there a reason that on that second camera, you don't just use continuous shot so that it's just going the whole time? I know that I was in rock and roll photography the other day, and he said He said that he set up a camera on the other side of the stage that just, like, continuously shot throughout. Yeah, so well, and so instead of like, having it, be that be that I mean, I guess that's random to, but it gives a very random can't just have it like intervals, like shoot after every 30 seconds or 20. I want to do that because I don't miss the moment. I know the moments happening. Okay, so I'm shooting. I'm just shooting somewhere else just to get the trigger. I just shooting control. I see it happening. No, I think it happened. The problem is I'm on this side on I got no shot. It's a bad shot when I'm shooting this side. But I could have my remote shoot. It's all just shoes boots. I'll show you another one. That's a perfect example. Look at this. Next one right here. Okay, This shot I love last year and this is the perfect scenario. I'm on the other side of the court. Whenever I set up a remote camera. I like to be on the other side. I don't want to duplicate what I'm doing. Well, this player had this monster dunk and then he decided to sell her. I mean, just distinct. And I've never seen a player do this to this day. And so, as you can see on the top, right photo, you can see my camera. It's right on the Stan shin at the top left. You can see my plus three right on top of it. I'm way back like a said way behind, shooting really loose with a 100 because I didn't have a shot there. I mean, he was dunking his backs. To me, these shots are worthless. Anything with the back of a player is a worthless. I see a lot of people send me back up for critique. Don't use the backup. We want to see faces. Okay? And so he dunks and then doesn't think so. I'm shooting. Keep shooting to the one. I've got the set up shop that I could show you guys. And two, I've got this beautiful image. I'm flying through the air in my remote camera. Same set of everything. Perfect, right? Obviously. So I'm really curious what you were Sweat. Well, your camera settings for the remote shot. Now, keep in mind, nothing's gonna change lighting whatsoever inside. So I had it. Probably 8/100 of a second F Isil, maybe 4500 somewhere around there. And I did a pre test before the game. You know, I went and stood out there kind of around. I always aimed for basketball. Aim for, like, the circle right here. Kind of somewhere close to the basket, cause that we could get dunks to things like that. So, yeah, nothing changed. Thank you. Here's one you guys mentioned before What? I got permission to put a camera in the catwalk during a playoff game. And it's scary. Is I'll get out. And I actually safety cable this thing, like four times, because if someone to drop its trouble. So this is the same shot of a dunk. This is what I use on the right is with my capturing a dunk, and this is what it looks like from overhead. And I actually use the 7200 on my remote toe fire. That and as I'm shooting once again, it's firing the camera upstairs so you can kind of get the same shot from different angles. Okay, I see remote the popular topic today, one like that. Okay, clean background. This is another tip. I like toe This year. A lot of people send me images that have a lot of stuff in the background. She could shoot up high. You know, we mentioned Shooting Low is being something really cool to do. What about shooting up high? If you shoot up high and down, you can get very clean backgrounds. This shot was long where I was just a fan. I wasn't credential to shoot this game. This happened in the game that the San Francisco Giants beat the Texas Rangers to win the World Series. I was just at the game with my camera. I talked with them photographers and some editors. They're like, This is part one of the cleanest shots of the celebration that anybody has. Why I wasn't credential. I wasn't on the field with the cameraman running around with all the distracting elements. I was in my seats. The Ranger fans weren't standing there, were upset. They lost their all sitting down. So I got I have a clean shot and I have a clean background. Them celebrating. Okay, so I always try to get clean backgrounds when possible. If you're shooting and there's something in the back a distracting element like a telephone pole going out of a head or anything to distract us, move. Who wants that one step to the right one step to the lab. There's nothing wrong with that. Don't be lazing to settle for distracting elements in your backgrounds. Okay, Okay. Here is a 10 star tip that no one tells you about that. I think if you get anything out of my seminar get Get this. Okay, cause this will improve your photography shoot. Backlit when possible. Outside. I know it sounds crazy, but this is what work. If you ever look at a Sports Illustrated, you ever look at a sporting is a big magazines. Look at their photos most of during the day, most or backlit. What happens with backlit photos is that the sun is gonna be back behind the stadium. The only time this doesn't work is when the sun straight ahead and then you just have ugly light. But one way or the other And I don't support to stay You know what? Porches back? Let your portrait that sun's going one way This guy at one win this guy I'm gonna be faced to the sun I want my players in between the sun because I'm gonna have a dark background because the sun's gonna provide shadow on one side of the stadium and the players me back that you can see all the beautiful rim light on the players on the back. Then you're gonna have reflections off the field toe like their faces. Here's a better example. Look at this same game. You can see the facial expressions. You can see the emotions. If I was on the other side, I'll probably a dark face. It wouldn't look as good, you know, but by backlighting. And then I'll even shoot up shooting a Navy mode. I might overexpose by 1/3 stop just to get a little more punch in the image to bring the image to life, not making sense. Any questions on backlighting? Okay, another tip that will decide for your you'll change your work. Straighten your horizons when people send me images to critique. This is the biggest gripe I have is the biggest gripe editors have When people send in images to them, we don't live in a tilted world, Okay? It's still bugs me on wedding Photography will tilt for an to fake, a tilting. We live in a straight world. So when editors see this, they go amateur pro. They know where the horizons crooked. That's wrong when you do straighten it. Okay, I can't stress that one enough. It's more pleasing, visually plain and simple. Okay. Ah, here is my super tip. I love this one. Any time you can get two faces and a ball in any photo, it's a winner. Any sport, any photo. One reason it's freaking hard to get. Okay, think about it when you're when you've got a sport you're covering, usually have one team on one side. Another team on the other side, right there were opposing each other. You're gonna back up ahead and maybe, you know, it's hard to get two of them pointed right at you. And then let's add the ball to that, and you're like, Oh, man, Hecky, this so any time you can get two faces and a ball, it's automatically a winner. Um, perfect example. Here, they're going after the ball. They run into each other, you see their expressions. You see the ball flying to see the referee. To me, it's one of my favorite shots from last year. On average. If I can get one of these good to facing the ball per game, I'm happy. That's how hard it is to get. I'm always looking for it. It's hard to get this last week of the Oklahoma game, this was that hit. I was talking about where the player got ejected. He didn't this. The player, 22 is catching the ball for a touchdown. Number nine goes, nailed him, knocks the ball out names to go flying. When I got to faces and I have a ball and it's frozen right? Soccer Soccer is a little bit easier to get just because there's a lot of head balls. Hitters. Well, they're both going up the same time to head the ball. You could kind of get them on the same plane, the same thing. Here, you can see the expressions. You can see the ball on his head and we have t faces and a fall. All right, this is two weeks ago. I actually love this photo. Um, this This was an interception number one in the purple. He caught the ball, got the interception, changed the game and actually won the game. But I love it because I got there's usually a jumble of body parts here in Pacific Ballet there, kind of all out. And in this perfect moment, right before their boat going for the ball, everything's perfectly in focus. Two faces Annable gm, What questions we have on that? All right, Kevin, let me take a peek. What? Would you let me talk about what I have for you guys? I have Ah, some good. I created some pds for you guys. Sports specifics I know we're in a hurry, and it's tough to talk about specific sports strategies today. So I created a guide with Joy. Absolute is a great baseball photographer and Daniel Sharis, a great football photographer we co authored. It is over 30 pages worth of a PdF full of information and instructional information. Strategies or not, we have a creative life special. $25. It's normal 35 for the next week. It's also gonna be a living document. What I mean by that is, as questions come in or we think of other things, there's technology improves. We're going to continually update the guide, and you will never have to pay another price to get. It will just give you the free download. A Zoe updated will send out an email to you guys that purchase it and you'll always have it. You always have the latest and greatest um, strategy guide, so to speak. So we're excited by it, said our our Web store, which I host with Alicia already live. You guys know my girlfriend. She's wonderful baby photographer There in Dallas and our our website, we go to K J images dot com and get that once again over 30 pages each on football, and we're also making one for basketball and soccer. But we're putting a lot of work into two, so it's gonna be a little bit, but we'll have a question on U. S so strictly AFS I have found that auto focus has tracking problems when shooting backlit. Can you address how you overcome this issue, or have you had any issues with it? Make sure when you're shooting back what, you're not shooting directly into the thunder. That's what I said when you shouldn't back that. I always make sure the dark background is dark. Okay, I've also seen some people try to shoot with the sun, where it's right in the in the lens, and then you get flair. You're gonna get issues with focus. Yeah, I make sure I get photos I showed you. It is into the dark background. That way, my players will pop out into the light, the room lights, so I'm always shooting to a dark background. If possible. Now, not a question will come up. I don't so I might ask. Well, Kevin, what do you do if the game's on the line. You've got this beautiful, pretty light backlit shot, but the action going the other way. You know, there's two minutes left. They're gonna go down, scored the game, winning touchdown. What do you do? You can't. You have to sacrifice your pretty light. I have to go down the other end and just shoot the action because that's that's the main part of the game. That's the story. So I'll miss my pretty light photo, but I'll get some good action to tell the story perfect. And we've also got a couple questions about hockey. Do things look bad light? And do you shoot through the glass or do you get closer? Can you tell I love shooting hockey from above? I think shooting hockey for weapons wanted clean the backgrounds of very clean, and you have the beautiful white ice reflecting onto the players. I mean, you're gonna get nice light from the ice, and usually I will shoot through the glass uses. There's holes cut out where you could shoot through the glass. Now I know that some stadiums don't have that, and then I have no problem shooting through the glass. In that point, bad light That's the whole thing about pumping that I s so up, you know, I'll shoot it to 4000 I eso and shoot 2 to 8 on have no problems. I personally love shooting hockey from above. Cool. Thank you. Awesome. Okay. All right. Now I get to draw. This is gonna be fun. I'm gonna talk about strategies for a few sports. We have a little bit time left. Where is my own race? On the worst drawer on the planet. So I'm gonna try this anyway. Open my. Here we go. Let's talk baseball first. So it's seals destroyed. Diamond. We'll just pretend that the diamond here is The dugout will say the home team dugout for the visiting team. Here's home plate. Okay. His pitcher's mound. We'll just say, um, what's his first base? And we'll put third base. Okay. Now for shooting baseball or softball, there are few spots where you're allowed to photograph from one is usually a well right here. Most stadiums have it, no matter what league little league, at least have one here and one here. Now, most other states will have one inside the home dugout and one inside the visiting dugout. This is important because I usually start out of game shooting from one of these spots, and the main reason being is when I'm coming again. I want at least capture the pictures in the batter's, so I'm always gonna try to get good shots of the pictures whenever, um, batter comes up. I always wanted to be facing me to get a proper photograph if you could look on the screen. Ah, left handed batter if its price offer on top, right? If he's batting here and he's a lefty right here, I'm gonna be on this side shooting this way that we can get his batting stance. Every once in a while, you'll have a batter like Beltre. That's a righty, and he's actually gonna open up his body all the way around. That's a rare occurrence, but sometimes they do that and you can see I can still get away with it, shoot from the opposite side just because he goes all the way around. But most times I want to kind of concentrate on the them facing me. Same with pictures with right handed pitcher shooting here. I want to be on this side because I can get his body, as you can see in the photo on the screen and for a lefty. I was shot that one from right here. Okay. From this angle. Now, for baseball, this is one of the sport's where I have I love shooting from above. Because, like I showed you in that one photo, the Giants, you could get really clean images. Um, okay, lets go on here. Here's another scenario I thought we talked about just because I know this is stuff that I think about that I want you guys to know there's a lot more to it than just shooting action. What happens when the home team It's a tie game. Bottom of the ninth. Where do you be? Where are you gonna be? You have to think about this because here's the home team dugout. Let's take us scenarios that might happen. Say the home team bats in. The runner gets the base hit. Okay, let's listen. It is runs on first and second, okay? And the home teams up, the guy gets a basic the winning run scores. Where should you be now? Think about what's gonna happen. The visiting team. They're all dejected. They're gonna walk off the field. Okay? The winning team, they're gonna jump out of here no matter what level you little leagues. Just saying, with justice back, they're gonna jump out here, and we're gonna go, OK? Are they gonna go mob the guy that just got the game winning hit over here at first base where they're gonna go mob the guy that scored the run. Okay. And where is the best position? Okay, well, if I'm here, I'm probably get blocked because there are, um about what they come to say I'm blocked. If they go here, I'm kind of block to. The safest position is over here for most scenarios. Where you're talking about home team winning, of course. In the picture bottom. Right. What do I do? I taking chances. I position myself here, and I'm praying. Is he crossed home plate. He'll give me something. He did he raise his hand? I am very close to being blocked. As you could see, players were running out, but to me, they actually frame the photo for me. And so it works. Um, another game. Another game winning hit. As you could see on the screen there. Still bring over here. Okay. And I had a clean shot that way, but I'm money in that position. I think I'm right over here. Okay. The next one. Here's where it gets really problematic. When you have a game winning walk off home run. You better be here for a home run. If you're over here, all the players jump out and they come around home plate. Okay? And all you Sometimes I'll be honest. Sometimes you can get a clean shot of the runner coming down home and the team, but chances are they're gonna mob around here on block you If you're here, you've got nothing. You've got nothing. You're hoping that he can come out. If you're over here, you can get the expressions of like, honestly, you can get the player expressions about the tackle. The guy is going to score the winning run. OK, Any questions That baseball? Yeah. Quick one. Kevin, when you're shooting baseball, how much do you move around during those nine inning, I move a lot. Okay? I move a lot. I really dio I might shoot an inning or two in one position that I might go up. I might go to third base. It depends on who's batting. You know, if I want to know a good shot of a lefty, a good variety, the pictures. It was a right handed pitcher here. I want to be on this side. If the lefty, I'm gonna be over here to make sure I get some good shots of that as well as getting action. So I do move around quite a bit in baseball. Great. Thank you. Okay, let's talk one more baseball. Oh, people do ask you this. I'm gonna talk about real quick bat on ball shots, people. How do you do that? How do you do that? A little tip I use is when the batter is in the stance. I always look for the left leg. Okay. When the batter moves the left like I know he's about to swing because sometimes he won't even move his leg. And, you know, he's just taking a pitch. Nothing's gonna waste frames. So when he when he goes back to back, I tried a time as if I'm batting. Okay. I'll time my my shutter release when he swings to try to get that bat on ball. It's not easy to get what she wanted. Throwing 97 miles an hour. Ok, any questions on battle ball for you guys? Okay. Good. About broken back, Broken back. That's just look. Yeah, right. The same cannonball card I showed you a couple of the slide show. Yeah, it makes me mad sometimes. Sometimes I've got my camera aimed at the field and I see a great Brokeback. I play beautiful. I love it when you get a broken bat. You just just same thing I'm just aiming for when they move this foot, just bat on ball and, you know, just follow through with it, and sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you don't you can't plan a broken back. What you can do is like knowing the game. No. Which closers, like in the ninth inning, Mariano Rivera is really good with broken bats. Guys like that, you know, have a habit for making batters break their bats. Then you're more focused on the batteries. You can know you maybe hopefully can get one. Okay, let's talk valuable. Go ahead. Do you have questions on this? I know. Thank you. Okay. We'll see here. There's going draw lines. Line six. Okay, now for football, there's usually a dotted line where photographers have to be back behind. It usually goes something like around a 20 yard line ish. So here's a bench area. You're not allowed to be in the bench area where the teams are. This goes for any level of football, too. Okay, first thing I want to do is kind of similar to to, um, baseball. We're talking about If I have a right handed quarterback Nicholas with Q B. He's thrown this way. Where do I have to be to get the good shot? Okay, let's think about it. If I'm over here on this side line, let me get this back. That's not necessarily the best position, so I kind of want to be right over here, and what I will do is hit. Here's the line of scrimmage. I will tend to be 5 to 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage because I can shoot right here, have a clean photo when he backs up, he's gonna go back about yards back up, then throw. I want a clean, clean shot of him. Okay. Makes sense. Same thing with the other quarterback, Um, for most shots. I personally love to be in the end zone. Let's like right over here in the corner. Well, these four corners, I like the corners because there's always a Pilon right here. You guys probably see these. These these shots on SportsCenter with the players are running for the pilot. They die for the pilot. That's when you make these really cool photos from Michael Corners right over here. Final appear in the middle. I'm gonna have referees in my way, and I'm gonna miss this shot here. It's not gonna look is pleasing because one I've got all these people here on the sideline to Israel distracting. So I like to be an indolent. Plus, it's like like the photo on the screen. If I'm behind the action, I can capture wide receivers. When they run, they turn around for the ball. I'll have a defender in the screen as well. We can capture, you know, two faces on ball type thing. When you're behind them. Now it's problematic when you have a team that's dominating another team and the defense isn't really good, then you don't want to be on the other side. You want to follow the action downfield makes sense. If you are focused on a particular team, maybe you're hired by the team to focus on their players like their offensive and defensive linemen. Well, Dan, you definitely need to be in the end zones that can get isolated shots. For example, I've got, um, he's defenders, this defensive line, one on the right. I'm down low again to the ground, and I can actually get him off the line of scrimmage with a clean photo. There's no distracting elements in the background and the little tougher when you're talking offensive and defensive linemen cause they're usually with other people, you know, they're actually engaged in a tackle, and so to get that, you kind of have to be in the end zone. If you're on the sideline, it's a little more hectic to do. OK, any questions? Yes. Do you simply try and get a picture of each player? Or is that just kind of you're going to get some good pictures of individual way? Have clients at USA Today where they will send us a list beforehand of client pictures that we need to get like the clients. I say we need someone. So we need selling. So shots of So until without a helmet. Um, just shots of game action of someone So but it's almost impossible. But every player I will shoot a lot of stock stuff where I will get most players, most star players, the big players, maybe some of the upcoming players for future years, things like that, guys that might be drafted, things like that when I'm kind of focused on on stuff like that. But yeah, isn't possibly every single player. Yeah, I'll try to get as many as possible. Okay, okay, Let's start soccer. We'll keep our same field. It's pretty similar. I do a couple of different things in soccer. Um, those you guys that didn't know the guys over there in Europe that cover English Premier. These guys know soccer like it's nothing. So you know their premier position is once again in the corners. They'll have, like their 400 or 600. They'll be in the corner off a soccer field. Main reason being also uses the net. They can use their 400 or 600 making it a good shot of action here in front of the Net as well is downfield. And usually they're right here, right over here. Well, they could have clean shots. Okay. When you get stuck here a little closer to the net, then all of a sudden you're lens gets too tight. OK, then you're having easier 7200. Um, work. And sometimes is this a little little to loose? So what I do is I do this shot too. But I also lately have loved moving around to midfield. If I had the opportunity, I will try to shoot some from here because it gives me a perfect shot here in a perfect shot here of both goalies. Okay, And usually you're not allowed to be in the bench area. If this is a bench one venture to say I'll be on the other side and my 400 is a perfect distance. As you can see from the photos, you can get some really dramatic goalkeeper shots where they're diving like the one on the left. He's actually jumping to make the save, and I couldn't get that from the side as good cause I want to see the goalkeeper's face as well, and then you can get the goalie punching the ball out on another shot. But that's from midfield, and I'm not blow. People used midfields. That's one of my things I just started doing. But I like it cause it's different. This one here is a funny story, actually, this is David Beckham. He played in Dallas. This was the game I covered. It wasn't supposed to rain. Okay? And I'm down on the field and on suddenly get this torrential downpour. I not that, of course, by rangers upstairs. So I grabbed myself. I'm going upstairs to get my rain gear. And then I found this little awning like, you know what? I'm just gonna shoot a little bit under this on me. So I ain't like my camera down, and I see it just makes for some beautiful pictures and this one of Beckham, he's kicking it on the left side. Is this a nice picture with the rain flowing and I love the shoes, Soccer from above. This is what I'm getting at because one, it's another clean background that we can use and actually Sports Illustrated. And in a double truck when he is his last season here, and he's kicking the ball in the rain. And I just love this photo and it just having been acting. I'll try and get away from the rain and found in the in the morning. So what questions do we have? More rap appear just so people know where I'm at Like I know where fast and furious trying Thio Thio cover a lot of sports that can literally we can go on days on each one. I'm at Kevin Girard on just about everything. Twitter, instagram, Facebook on KJ images is the website. Um, so let's talk open up for a few questions. Fan. Fantastic. We got some really good ones. Eso Robert lug to Wants to know, Do you shoot rot JPEG okay, or both or what? You shoot. I shoot J Peg in the main reason being, as I have to transmit images when I'm shooting, I have to transmit images at all parts of the game. If I'm shooting a football game, I'm transmitting images before the first quarter is over, so I run in there. I don't have time to shoot raw. It's too big to bigger files and I am a big believer in getting right in camera. So I will make sure my white balance, everything looks good ahead of time. I'll do some tai shots. I just got my work flow down. Now, I should strictly j pick. And I'm shooting really fast, okay? And I'm getting in and out. I don't have time to shoot raw insurance policy like insurance policy. I have everything insured through Hillen Usher. Yeah, quite a bit of money we spend on it. But chances are something. If you're a sports photographer, your equipment's gonna break right outside of the equipment. Like what? If, you know, like someone like like your liability insurance. Yeah, I've got liability from a up to, like, think. Two million, So All right. Good. Um, one blurry lens would like to know, and I love it. And I love this question because clearly you're sports fan. Any rules? Etiquette wise for cheering or not cheering? You know, you don't. How do you dig deep And your leg? No, Like I went to Oklahoma. Cover them last week. I'm of a huge, sooner fan, but you have to be neutral. You're there to tell a story, Your photojournalist. So you know, you do not wear any clothing that has logo's of your shore that you're rooting for. So you kind of wear neutral clothing and your non bias, insane thing with riders up in the press box. There's some of those as they're covered, a local team they're not allowed to chair. You can get your credentials revoked by doing stuff like that. You're definitely neutral. Okay, Fantastic. And I know we touched on this a little bit earlier, but I kind of want to reiterate from from Kristen. And a lot of people, of course, are asking the magic question as we talked about yesterday as a beginner. How do you get started getting credentials for events? You talked about sending your book any other I thoughts about that. Yeah. Like I said, action is action, storytelling, storytelling and and right now you don't have the credentials. Go shoot your local park, get some images that tell a story and put something together and then go meet. If you want to shoot for a magazine, go meet with a magazine editor, call up a magazine editor standing in an album like I Did you know there's lots of magazines out. There is lots of newspapers out there, you know, send your work in. If they know. Editors, I promise, you know, a good photo from a bad photo. The problem. The problem is so many people are sending in bad photos and some of these tips, like I tell you about the horizons backlighting. If you stand that stuff in the two faces in a ball, if you guys do that, they will see Oh, they know what they're doing. They're more apt to respond to you if you don't get a response after the chances are. Most of the photos are probably not what they're looking for, and this is doesn't tips. Like I said, I learned that it's helped me progress. So, you know, same thing. Fantastic, cause we got a lot of people in in the rooms here that are asking about that. I'm going to ask one final question. We've talked about a lot of the larger sports, have you ever, and this is my own personal question. Have your shot the Olympics, and how does your house at a game changer for you or other sports like volleyball and actually trained sport? Yeah, I haven't, but you have to live with it. But I will be going to Russia for the Winter Olympics. I'm excited about that. Be photographing. That's why I could tell you after that I haven't done to eat a little sports yet. But I'm also willing to learn. It is one of things. When I do when I am gonna be a signer. If I'm ever assigned for a sport, I will always google and look up photos of that particular sport. I want to kind of get an idea how to cover it so I'll never go in there blindly not knowing what I'm gonna shoot. I'm gonna definitely do my research before I do that. Yes, people that are just getting into sports photography. Can you explain a little bit about how, when you say like, Oh, CNN picked up this photo? How does that affect you? Do you get is it just have a I have freelanced for USA Today sports and so we have an agreement in place that they pay. It's a rate to shoot a game as well as they give us royalties on images, dig it running magazines and books and newspapers and what not? So that's how that works. Is this a contract you enter into a new organization and there's lots of organizations organizations out there like that, so