Lessons Learned in Sports Photography

I have been shooting sports for Collegiate Times for over a year. I started with very little  knowledge of photography and no experience in shooting sports. I have learned a lot from my fellow photographers and still there is a lot to learn. Here are some tips that fellow photographers have shared with me and I am jotting them down.

1. This tip does not basically belong to photography but how to behave on field. Players should always get the preference no matter. There are always limits where a photographer can go in field, but in those limits also photographer should try to sync in background. He should be almost like invisible, so in any condition he is not disturbing any players or blocking any viewers.
2. In a sport where ball is involved, always get ball in the picture. Ball in the picture always gives your viewers what is going on in the picture. I was taught this skill while shooting tennis. Taking ball out of photographs can confuse viewers what’s the player doing.
3. Study the players. After shooting a particular sports for a team we know what kind of moves/shots/dunks a player has. If we are able to predict players next move in the game we can be at exact place to capture that moment. Its true that it will take many hundred bad shots but one good shot is enough to make you happy.
4. Know the sport well, especially the rules of the game. It may seem trivial but sometimes when we are trying to figure out what’s going on in the game and we miss the chance. Rules also help us decide which is the perfect position to take for photographs e.g. one should know where the referee would be most of the time so they don’t block the shot.
5. Study the fellow photographers and their photographs. I think this is the most important step in learning. You know the photographers that usually shoot with you and the spot they choose to take photos. When analyzing their photographs we can find out why they chose that place, what kind of shot they were looking for etc. We should also search for images from that sports and try to figure out what composes a great shot. I believe, learning from others experience is the best way.
6. Its not just the action that is important, we should be able to capture the reaction as well. Since we get only one photo to tell the story of the game, we need to know exactly what is going on in the game and capture that moment. Sometimes the frustration, joy, excitement, eagerness,  anger, intensity, and concentration of the player make an excellent shot. Fans, cheerleaders, half time activities and mascots are very good subjects too.

I learned a lot in last two years from SPPS photographers and seeing others shoot at Cassell. It has been a joy shooting Hokies at Basketball and Volleyball, I am definitely going to miss it.  

PS: These are just few basic tips I learned, I believe I have a lot of learn. I would try to update this blog regularly based on comments/tips I receive.

Tags: sports

Today I shot my last Basketball game for Collegiate Times. One interesting thing that happened today reminded me of the first Basketball game I shot. I am attaching both the photographs as part of story.

First shot is from my first game (14th Dec 2008) and second is from today’s game. Both times I was sitting at exact same location when this happened, player lost control of ball and it came toward me. Being a rookie that time, I could not move and I was hit by ball and the player. This time I was fast enough to move and get out of the way. Not only did I achieve it, I was able to capture a much better photograph too. I surely learned a lot in last two years about photography, thanks to all the photographers around me. That blog would be some other day, but I just find this “coincident” humorous. 

Tags: Basketball, Hokies, Photography, virginia tech

Today was the day that will go down in golden world in Cricketing history. The mythical 200 run mark in ODI was broken and it was by none other than India’s proudest possession, Sachin Tendulkar.  For last 20 years he has given India a consistent performance that is unparallel to any other effort. He has many names – God, Master Blaster, Little Master, Tendya, One man army etc. He has many names and I won’t get into detail which one I like, but what he means to country. He is HOPE, he is the one who can swing the game in India’s favor. Till he is on crease no Indian ever loses hope, opposition fears him more than anything and bowlers have nightmares before and after the game. He has played many great innings – ranging from his ‘Desert Storm’ inning in Sharjah to ‘cut shot’ in 2003 world cup which sent Pakistan back home.

He not only survives the tremendous pressure put by opposition but also the enormous amount of expectations from more than a billion people. When he walks onto the filed every fans wants a century from him and nothing less. To meet those levels of expectations constantly for twenty years is phenomenal.

He has literally almost all the batting records to his name, but the one he created today has eluded him few times. Why is this great (if not greatest) inning? why does it carry more weight than anything when it is just six run ahead of previous record? What makes this the one to remember for life? Here are my reasons:

‘Carry the bat’ is not an easy thing to achieve. It takes immense concentration, stamina, patience and requires perfection of the incomparable level. It takes just one mistake – a slight miscalculation, loss of concentration or something minute and you are sent back to pavilion. To perform such task in changing conditions and distractions all around is huge task. In not only requires patience but also controlling the emotions. One cannot achieve such perfection without hard work, dedication or letting success get into head. Even one survives those five grueling hours on pitch, it takes enormous effort to scores runs consistently at such high rate. One is not just concentrating on batting but also running, keep the score ticking and attacking the opposition mentally. To achieve such a feat at age of 37 in itself is amazing. He not only has stamina to survive, which he has developed over years of rigorous training and immense discipline, but also cunningness to adapt to situation. The way he switched from hitting shots to using bowler’s pace was marvelous. To end this argument, I would say, he does not have the body structure of modern day players who believe in power hitting. Sachin Tendulkar is not six foot tall with broad shoulders to attack all the balls, he is a class act – a mix of brilliance, elegance and ability to innovate shots. All these things make this one of the greatest innings of Cricket.

What now? Sachin Tendulkar has one more dream, to win the World Cup for India. We know he is going to do his best and he will have more than a billion fans to support from him. If he continues this form, I have no qualms in proclaiming that India will not fail to win the World Cup. What could be a better gift than winning the World Cup on home turf. We all LOVE you Sachin! You are Cricket to me and I don’t want to imagine…

Tags: cricket, india, sachin, Sachin Tendulkar

Today I watched Food, Inc. and that triggered this post. Coming from India I see food in a different perspective, a nation where poverty is the main problem and almost half of the population struggles to get both meals a day. A country which has the highest malnutrition (215+ million people) in world, food to all seems to be the biggest challenge.  Then we have another set of problems related to food – adulteration and excessive usage of chemicals in farming.

When I came to US, the first thing I noticed was the prosperity and then in few days I was introduced to Wal Mart. This gave me an impression that at least this country doesn’t have problems in this area. Then I met few friends who introduced me to different set of issues that most people are unaware of. They gave me a comprehensive idea of how most of the food is prepared. At first I did not see it as problem, I thought of it as efficient use of technology. When they explained all the aspects I was surprised to find out about cruelty to animals and other ways in which food was prepared. This was not end of story, this form of preparation promoted unhealthy eating practices. Then the question was why still people don’t change? Answer was simple – lack of awareness and low cost. And here it comes back to similar problem as India- to prepare food at lower costs.  In India the problem magnifies as enforcement of food related laws is not proper.

This movie provides the same insight in terms of how technology advancement has solved some temporary issues but can lead to tragic issues later. It talks about how chicken and cow are bred, kind of environment they live in, how they are used in assembly line, how genetic engineering has changed the life cycle of animals and how animals are grown specific to human taste. They further extend this approach to corn, soybean and other agriculture products and its impact on humans. Basic idea of the movie is to show how food is engineered to human needs with maximum efficiency and at lowest cost. Movie also talks about law reform needed to improve conditions and what we can do to help not only ourselves but environment as well. It’s a terrifying expose of food industry but sends a deeper message – how our habits as a consumers have degraded the way we live and that message is more important to me.

This movie is an eye opener for normal people like us who have no idea what goes behind the food counter. This should also be a lesson to developing countries on how to tackle food problems. More than 50% of world population has food related issues, we need to come up with better ways to resolve the problem rather than taking the same approach. I do not know what that approach will be but I like what one of the message from the movie – “Eat at home instead of eating out.” and “Make a point to know where your food comes from—READ LABELS.” I would recommend this movie to everyone, because awareness is the first step and always helps.

On the same topic I have another recommendation, in the form of book this time – Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health.

Update: I received many queries about me being still vegetarian and if yes, how does it impact me? I am still a vegetarian. It impacts me because I look this from perspective of consumer. How our behavior as consumer has changed over years and how that drives the corporations to change their policies. My perspective was to increase awareness among all, to understand what corporate social responsibility is and how organizations we deal with fare in it.

Tags: Food, india, US

This is not a full video of the show, I have edited the parts which contains storyline and some spoilers. This is not just a stunt show but an extremely hilarious show as well.

Tags: disney, Hollywood, Indiana Jones

Apple today announced its much hyped product iPad. Steve Jobs introduced the product as something in between iPhone and McBook. When he explained this, it made perfect sense to me and by the time presentation ended I wanted to get one. Price point for 16 GB device is $499 and it seems reasonable for a multi touch device with sharp OLED display, Apple A4 processor and wifi connectivity. A flurry of application that seems to attract you at once are incorporated in the device and many more better applications and games would be developed in future. Most attractive application would be iBook which makes iPad direct competitor to Kindle.

Here are the two main reasons that made me change my mind:

Do I really need a device between iPod touch (which I own) and a laptop? I looked for its usage and tried to see which all situations I will need an iPad. When I am commuting I use my iPod to listen to music/podcast etc. When I am in cafe, college etc I use iPod to browse and do normal internet work. For all complex tasks I use my laptop. Where does iPad fit? I can’t use it to listen to music, so I will have to carry iPod and I can’t work on some essential software if I use iPad. An argument can be made about web applications taking over desktop applications but I still prefer my old style keyboard to be used. iPad has a dockable keyboard but is it easy to carry it all the time and when at home why not use laptop?

Many people called it Kindle killer but I don’t see that happening. Undoubtedly reading books on a colored screen would be pleasure but it will cause significant strain on eye. OLED is good for shorter reading periods but prolonged usage will cause serious strain. Kindle not only will provide E Ink  based display which is much more pleasant to eyes. Kindle despite being black and white, and with poor UI will score better. Adding to that would be Kindle’s content deals with publishers and recently released SDK that will help developers come up with better tools.

I am happy that device came up, it will not revolutionize the industry but will push industry to come up with better devices. We will have a surge of eBook readers soon in market as well as help in raising standards for Netbook. Another added benefit would be that Kindle’s prices will come down and I am waiting for that day.

Tags: apple, iPad, Kindle

A video montage of a day at Magic Kingdom. This video covers US Main Street, Tomorrowland, Adventureland, Fantasyland, Buzz Light Year, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, it’s a small world, daytime parade and Fireworks. To check full video use Magic Kingdom Fireworks and It’s a small world.

Tags: Adventureland, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Buzz Light Year, daytime parade, Fantasyland, fireworks, it's a small world, Tomorrowland, US Main Street

There are two quotes from the movie ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ about hope that sometimes help me and sometimes makes me nervous. First quote

Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. -Red

and second one

..hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. -Andy Dufresne

I always wonder which one suits me, which one should I live my life with. Whenever it comes to giving advice,suggestion, boosting moral I go with Andy’s quote. But then there are situations in which I am concerned and then I go along with Red, because I hope for a lot of things and when things do not turn out my way, I drive myself insane. Many a times I ask myself which one should I follow, but it seems there is no correct answer, both are at different extremities and as I understand living on extremities is dangerous. I can always take the Middle Path as suggested by Buddha and be happy.

I am able to follow Middle Path for most of things in my life but then there are some circumstances when my expectations are high. With some situations/people I am just too much hopeful. I want some things to go my way and because I trust the people involved in it that I end up hurting myself. I am not a demanding person, as my friends know, I am very flexible but once in a while I change my attitude to demanding and end up hurting myself. My demands are not high and worst part is, I do not understand concerns from other end.

I need to resolve this. I definitely know ‘hope is a good thing’ and I should hope but at the same time be able to control myself. I have created a lot of problems and need to figure out a way to get out of it and I am hopeful to get out of it. I just hope that I should be more understanding and could control my emotions. Will stop here but with the quote that I love the most and I believe is absolutely right.

The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion. – Richard Feynman

Tags: Buddha, Feynman, Hope, Shawshank Redemption

There are few things in life that we keep in our bucket list and few things that we have not thought about in our wildest dreams, scuba diving was part of that list. When I first heard that our group would be diving, my reaction was I will stay away from this one. But there were two positive things – first presence of Scott, who is an expert on scuba diving and has done it countless times, have instructed and taken many people for scuba dive for years and has dived to a depth of 200 feet. With his roaring confidence, expert skills and assurance that you don’t even have to know swimming to dive helped me decide. I obviously used twitter for suggestions and many people reassured me of the fun adventure it would be. Second thing that helped me was that I was not the only one with zero experience. That factor helps you decide that learning something new would be fun. And being in Key Largo, the diving capital of world and not to dive would be sort of blasphemy.

We were a group of eight people – one expert diver, two people with diving experience and  four of us with first try. We did our first practice in a pool, but parameters of equation had changed completely as we had thought of. It was getting dark so we had  less pool time, unusual to Florida weather it was extremely cold, and seeing all the gear with different gauges to monitor and learn everything in short time seemed impossible. I had been bugging Drew with a zillion question, he has taken the diving course and was ready with all the answers. Scott and him had been giving me very good answers, but when it comes to practical I trust experts only. Even though theoretically things work, in practice things are different. But there was no harm to jump in the pool, so we had out wet suits on, air cylinder on the back, fins and mask ready and we jumped into water. We tried different things underwater for around 40 minutes ranging from how to communicate, breath, hold the mask,  remove water from mask, control ear pressure etc. We also practiced different situations such as when one loses his breathing tube, how to get other one, how to ask for help. Balancing was big problem and that was resolved by adding weights. We also tried how to go up and down in water by controlling our breathing and I failed miserably in that. Since we did not have time, we wrapped up.

I was not confident and Brett has the similar concerns. Scott once again gave us confidence and scheduled another practice session next morning. Then we were hit with the bad news, next day was going to be coldest in Florida history and none of the boats would be going in water. Scott had a contingency plan for that too, he prepared us to wear two wet suits, so we would be warm. But that adds to another problem, wet suits gives you more buoyancy so we need to carry more weight. Scott also arranged for a boat to go in waters next day.

Next day practice session was good. We had two wet suits on, more weights and it was freezing cold but we were determined. Spending extra time underwater in pool gave me much more confidence and I was ready to jump in water. We practiced how to get on to boat, jump from the boat and other necessary tricks. We were set to jump in Atlantic. I bought an underwater camera so I can shoot something, though the chances were low considering most of the time I would be trying to make things work, but I wanted to capture the amazing experience we were about to encounter.

It was a 45 seat boat, carrying only 8-9 people to dive. Once it was in sea I realized the crazy thing we were about to do. The day before I was making comments about how I have never see a sea calmer then this, but things had changed. It was choppy, 3 feet high waves, dense fog and extreme cold. With these kind of situations I would not even go on a boat but I don’t know what force has been driving me. We reached our dive point, our captain briefed us, Scott gave us last set of instructions (video below) and we were ready (or not?). The plan was Drew and other divers will get into water first, Scott will go next, Wes and Stacy will jump in after that and Brett and I were about to jump last. Scott would take 2 people at a time to bottom and then we will move around and see corals for some time. Things went on fine for few few minutes, I had not jumped into water yet, and Stacy did not like the water. So she came back in the boat, I had no idea why but that scared me. Then boat’s anchor slipped and people were trying to fix it and I had no clue what was going on. I was not sure what I was about to do, rocking boat has already made me sea sick and all this was adding to confusion.

Finally, I jumped in water, hold it to my line and reached next to Scott. Then I started my descent following all the instructions I knew. With the complete precision I started moving downwards. But as I mentioned things change in real life, my ear pressure was changing rapidly, so I used the technique I had learned. But next thing that went wrong was water inside mask. I tried to remove it and was partially successful. So I went deeper and almost reached the bottom, I waved at my fellow divers, stayed for around a minute, tried to look around but could not see much, no underwater life at all. But I had water in my mask again, I tried the technique and failed. My mask had a lot of water in it, so I came back on surface. I repeated the same trick again of going back in and came back after some time. I had tasted salt water and that was end of my dive. Getting back into the boat was another bit of adventure, I had panicked a bit and I could not hear what the guy on boat was saying, cold was adding up to all the confusion. Finally, I was on boat, safe and sound. I did not consider it as dive because I did not get to see the fish but other said, since I was breathing underwater for sometime, I made the dive.

Overall, it was a great experience. Given other day and time, when things are better and I get a chance to see the beautiful underwater life, I would jump again. But this first try could not have been possible without Scott and his confidence. He gave me the confidence, proper training and facilitated the jump. I would not jump into Atlantic on such a crazy day without being in such expert hands. Thanks Scott for such a wonderful experience.

Tags: Key Largo, Scuba Diving

Catastrophe Canyon is part of ‘Studio Backlot Tour’ at Hollywood Studios. This this sequence we observe how rain is created, how an oil tanker is set to explosion and how gush of water changes the scene. Then we go behind the scene to understand how mechanics of these systems work.

Tags: Catastrophe Canyon, disneyworld, Hollywood