Taking photos at events

I went and spoke to some students at my kids’ high school who are in the year book class and are going to do event photography.

So I’ve been thinking quite a bit. Turns out there are a lot of things I wanted to talk about. I was pretty excited about doing this and perhaps over-estimated the interest of my audience at 9AM. I am glad I did not take the 8AM spot.

In any case, I figured the Internet is also thirsting for my take on the subject. So here we go . . .

Audience

A lot of doing this well is knowing your audience, what they like/expect, and how much you want to cater to that. For school stuff, I tend to shoot with every child’s parent as the audience. That leads to me keeping lots of pictures I’d throw away if I were just going by my own view of quality. I also have to shoot a lot more photos this way.

If I’m shooting for myself or for a contest¹ That kind of shooting results in far less photos and far more aggressive deleting. With the contest, I was also able to see what won over the last couple years and keep that in mind when I submitted.

Destination

The difference between what I can get away with for online stuff vs what looks good on posters is considerable. Black-and-white vs color matters. Some shots really only work in color, others just work in black and white. It can be hard for me to predict this as my photos are often used by the school in their magazines and other print material. The pictures have also been used in senior day posters for athletes and sports cards. The posters are pretty big. Life is easier if you are in control of the full cycle.

General tips

Shoot wide and deal more with cropping and composition in post. With today’s giant pixel counts, you can crop tons and still have very usable photos. It also makes shooting a bit easier if you are learning. Center that focus and leave some room to crop. Then you can apply a rule of thirds or whatever makes sense. That said, as you get more experience, focus on getting closer to the composition you want in camera. It’ll save you time and just helps your brain see what needs to be in the shot.

Chase decent lighting. Generally keep the light at your back. Move people into full shade vs dappled light if you can or wait for the player to hit a pool of light in a night game or a patch of shade when the mid-day light is harsh. When the light is just terrible, try to turn it into an advantage by shooting high key, silhouette, lens flares, etc. Like dutch angles, make the choices look intentional.

Try to shoot from a non-standard angle. That could be kneeling or prone. It could be climbing up to shoot down or even raising your arm above your head. For most sports shots, I’m down low trying to make people look extra heroic. That happens by default for most concerts. I often see the photograph as a way to get a view that normal spectators won’t see. That might just be a detail frozen in time but it’s often a closer view that’s not what everyone sees from the crowd.

Planning ahead

Make a simple shot list. What are the meat and potatoes shots you need/want? What are some crazy ones to try? Check them off.

If it’s a place you haven’t been before, it’s great if you can visit ahead of time. I tend not to have that much free time so I just try to show up early. That’s also helpful in establishing yourself as someone who should be on the field taking photos. Being early with some obvious camera gear and behaving professionally can go a long way even if you don’t have a pass.

You don’t want to be writing the names of seniors on your hand on the last game (see image above). If you’re shooting a whole season and you try to capture everyone, it can be easy to assume you’ll get plenty of shots of everyone. With larger teams it’s easy to miss people. Keep track. Do some extra work in post-processing to make sure you’re doing what you plan. Also, sometimes people switch numbers mid-way through the season just to mess with you.

Rules

Different places and sports have different rules for photographers. If you don’t know, try to get there early and ask a coach or ref. Don’t be like me and get yelled at by a ref at a field hockey game. You may also need a media pass. Usually you can contact the school and they’ll point you on the right direction.

In all events (sports included), I try to be neither seen nor heard. That means electronic shutter in places where it can be heard even if that means some photos get weird banding. That also means not cheering. With athletics, you can wear team gear/colors but you’re really supposed to be blend and be neutral in your actions. That can be hard. If you’re at a concert or play, dress in dark colors. You don’t want to show up as a glaring striped object in the background of other people’s shots. Think hard about where you need to be and make the least possible disruption to the event itself (even if it means not getting some shots you want). Move during breaks. Avoid obstructing other people’s sight lines. Just be as polite as possible and think of how what you do impacts the performers and the audience.

Event Patterns

There are lots of patterns in sports and other events. If you know what they are, you can be in place for some great shots. Learning those patterns takes some experience but there are easy wins- like the pledge at the start of games. That’s a great time to take portrait style photos. People tend to be still and serious. In field hockey, the penalty shots are great. You’ve got interesting masks, people standing still and focused. Track and field is another nice one for being able to follow the patterns and move to where the action will be. Trinity’s cabaret always ends with each group coming out to bow and then a final group bow. Then they celebrate while the audience applauds. Self-evident, I guess, but a great time to capture certain shots as people are done with the stress of performing and are really smiling.

If you’re with a group long enough, you can also pick out the habits of individuals. It might be something really dramatic like dunking on the goal post prior to each game or just kneeling to pray. While I got both those shots, neither was quite what I hoped for.

The gaol post dunk is dramatic, the sky is great, but the other players are static. I’d also like it a bit wider and closer to the ground. I planned to climb the goal post and shoot it from up there one time but the jerry-rigged ladder I made with a piece of lumber slipped as I tried to scramble up. Poor planning. Poor execution. That’s probably one of those shots that’s better faked as a live shot.

The light on the kneeling shot is ok, some backlighting but not quite enough. The background is messy. I might have gotten lower. It could be worth working more with in Lightroom or Photoshop . . . maybe black and white? When I’m shooting thousands of shots a game, I tend to get it to acceptable and roll on.

Destinations

It’s hard to know where some of these photos will end up. It is kind of fun to see what other people do with them. They’ve been on the cover of magazines, senior posters, baseball-card-style sport cards², social media stuff . . .

As someone who cares about the photos, it can be a little frustrating when I disagree with a choice but most of the time I love it. Even when I don’t, it tends to be the student doing something with social media filters and if it makes them happy, so be it.

This year of senior football posters was especially good. I think one of the parents knew someone in a marketing company and they did a great mix of portraits and action. The posters were also really large and it’s always wild for me to see photos I took that aren’t just on a computer screen.

This shot during graduation made the cover of the Trinity magazine.³ I’d shot this student at the musical performances (look for someone wearing antlers) and knew they were prone to really great expressions.

Another one from graduation. I had seen the parent when their child came out and waited until they got the diploma for this shot. I’d seen the bright colors, great emotion, etc. I also thought I could get good separation by the low angle and the white wall behind them. It was cool to see the magazine editor crop it out entirely. I like to think I made their life easier with how I shot it. This is an example of a little micro-pattern in an event that you can take advantage of. It’s also a decent example of angle and background.

Light

Light for events is often tricky. You are rarely in control and just have to go with the flow of things.

Sometimes the light is just nice. It’s overcast or nearing sunset. Life is sweet and all is easy.

Most of the time, it’s not. It’s harsh with hard shadows. These two examples try to deal with that. In the football shot, I went super wide with the aperture and blew out the high lights. It’s a very shallow depth of field and I like the look. It was also an attempt to use a lens that I don’t normally use for sports (50mm). With field hockey, I moved so the light was from the side (usually it’s behind me) and pulled up the shadows some in post. I think it works ok.

Night games at high schools are usually rough. There will almost certainly be dark spots. Shoot when people hit the better areas. You can see in these examples that I started playing with the shutter speed. 1/800 freezes the motion and 1/80 gives me some blur . . . but I am able to keep the face in focus. Expect to throw away 98% of the slow shutter shots you take. When they work it is really cool though.

It’s also worth thinking about pools of light/shade in daylight games as well. You can often get some great shots if a portion of the field is in the shade. Look for those areas. Think about how the sun will move over the course of the game.

These two shots were with an electronic shutter and both have banding. There are various ways to deal with this, including buying a newer, more expensive camera. It can be hard to see that it’s happening at the time. Since I don’t shoot lots of indoor events like this, I continue to learn. I do think it was worth sticking with the electronic shutter even with some issues because it lowered the level of disruption I might cause for the audience. No one wants to hear rapid fire shutter sounds when they’re recording someone singing.

With dramatic lighting, you can also lean into it more and jack up the saturation rather than fighting with it. In this case, more is more.

Backgrounds

I think backgrounds are often the thing that transforms a good shot into a great shot.

These are two examples of trying to make the background not matter. It’s as vanilla as possible. All focus is on the subject. That’s cool and good and in many, many situations. Clean is always better than cluttered.

But backgrounds also set the stage and can be really great ways to add dimension and context. These shots start to pull in the background in ways that matter. They set the stage (sometimes literally). The Middlebury shots have the mountains and fall foliage for season and geography. They mean a lot to the primary audience and are just nice visuals in general. The signing shot feels really different when you crop out the light. It still works but the beam just changes it for me. In the case of the soccer shot, that green wall is on the Trinity home field. I keep trying to get a great shot there but haven’t quite gotten. The wall is something that Trinity players and parents recognize and is a nice way to both signal where it is and avoid a cluttered background.

I consider these shots as starting to bring the background in at like 50% strength.

These two shots are a bit higher. The backgrounds really change things. You’ve got the band and lights. You’ve got yellow cabs in the other shot. These things give context and are visually more important. I don’t know the percentage but it’s more than 50%.

Then you’ve got shots like these where the background is even more important and I’ve tried to include it as a key element. I’ve also decided now that giving percentages is a dumb idea.

The touchdown hands from the QB makes this shot.

While backgrounds are great they can also cause problems. One easy thing to do to improve shots is to try to make your lines straight. See the difference between these two shots. In the non-straight one, the leading lines lead you away. I could crop it tighter and improve it some but it’s still going to be an issue. I might be able to fix it in post . . . but I’ve got to buy groceries and stuff people.

You can also see how people in backgrounds just tank an otherwise decent shot. It is what it is. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do. The touchdown shot is an example of that. The pre-game fall leave shot is one I could have saved by moving my position enough. I just didn’t do it.

Depth of field

I tend to shoot with the lens at the widest aperture which gives me the shallowest depth of field (dof). It’s just what I do. I miss many shots because of this but I like what I get. There’s pretty much nothing you can say that will change my mind about doing this. I put a slide in there about what things impact dof but skipped it as I could see people were not interested in that level of detail. So I’ll also skip it here.

This is an example of having everything in focus. You often see it in landscapes or other wide angle shots. It’s solid for context, big-picture views, etc. I rarely do this.

Frequently in sports, you see this. It’s just foreground and background. Two levels of focus. It helps separate out the subject from the background and creates bokeh.

Shots with three or more planes of focus are less common and, as a result, often more interesting. It creates additional depth.

There’s fun stuff to try here and I want to see how many layers I might be able to create before it turns to garbage.

Angles

Here I’m re-using the dunk shot. It’s a fun angle and very dramatic. You may notice the singer is also the person in the graduation cover. Both are very long angle and make the person more dramatic. The rock climber is one I’m less sure about. I thought it was interesting because it’s eye-level which is not normal for people climbing things but maybe it makes it feel too plain. It’s a thing I’d like to re-shoot with full access and maybe some climbing gear.

While these aren’t event photos, they do a decent job of showing two eye-level shots vs a low angle shot. I think the first two definitely feel closer and more intimate while the one of the far right (even cropped to fit the slide) changes that feeling. I could also be over-thinking this. The important part is just to think about angles and try things.

Look for

I find myself looking for particular things repeatedly because they amuse me or tend to make shots I like. No rocket science here. You may find your own themes to come back to but I find these to be solid.

Here we have VMI students mainly repeating a pattern. Same clothes, haircuts, etc. and mostly not cheering. It becomes an interesting shot because one student breaks the pattern. It’d be better if they guy behind him was not visible but life is not perfect.

With the child and the father, the body’s are roughly aligned (head and arms) and the pattern helps emphasize the relationship. I think this is the only photo I’ve ever submitted to a contest and it won me some money.

Some people are just dramatic. They often also love the camera. I have 7 million shots of the student running track. He’s the guy dunking on the field goal. He loves being in photos. He poses constantly. In this case, I knew where the baton handoff would happen and I figured his hair would make for an interesting action element. Long hair is nice because it shows movement.

The coach yelling at the sky is another example of a dramatic person who makes for great shots. It is predictable and dramatic which is a nice combination for a photographer.

Sunglasses are nice for reflections. Same goes for football visors. I look for reflections all the time. Brass instruments are also fun.

Keep you head on a swivel. Get the score but take note of interesting fans. Again some people seem to see cameras and create interesting photos. Look for them. Look for little bits of drama and excitement that are part of the story of the event. You can put more this in your head as you get more comfortable with what you’re doing. I imagine this is an aspect of cognitive load.

Take advantage

There are a million paths to learning more these days. Social media is packed with examples- even old places like Flickr.

Wonder how that shot was taken? See the camera, lens, settings . . . compare it to your own options. Think about things.

Even old Facebook has interesting groups that post examples, request feedback, and help you think about things.

You also see just perfect examples like this that can inspire your shots.

I also try to have all sorts of interesting visual art in the mix. All of this helps me think about composition, cool possible shots, and just generally be inspired to keep trying new things.

I also don’t stick to just sports/event photography. I like to do all kinds of photography.

In general, this is what I try to practice.