I must admit, I absolutely love the sport of wrestling. Although, as a photographer, I hate the lighting conditions in which a vast majority of matches take place.

For spectators and the wrestlers competing, the atmosphere of a darkened gym with a main spotlight over the mat, music playing during warmups, and great wrestling action — nothing, in my opinion compares.

The image below should give you an idea of the lighting conditions. The main spot light provides fairly decent lighting (to a photographer) as long as the action is within or near the smaller inner circle. As the action moves to the outer edges of the mat, the light falloff fades fast. The only other light into the gym are the emergency strips on the wall, and the scoring table.

Even if I used high ISO on my camera and fast lenses to get enough shutter speed to avoid motion blur, the direct light from above creates some horrendous shadows, so anything not lit from above is hardly visible — such as faces and holds. Below is an image from this same gym I photographed three years ago using available light only. The wrestlers were out of the inner circle, yet the ref was not, so he is exposed properly, but the action itself is not for they are in the shadows. Not only is the shadows a problem, but I was shooting at ISO 3200; f/2; 1/320 second. This does not provide the most cleanest of images. Sure, I could have slowed down my shutter speed more to bring in more of the shadows, but then everything that was lit (referee, uniform, headgear) would be blown out. Pick your poison.

When only using the main spot light above mat, properly exposing causes very dark shadows in areas not lit by the mat light.

Now when I photograph wrestling, I like to bring my own light with me, so I am not at the mercy of the venue. I setup one of two ways — using off-camera direct lighting with the use of small flashes mounted to the railings of the bleachers, or for this event, with a couple of studio strobes.

Conditions need to be right for me to get out my strobes. The gym must have a white (or very light) colored ceiling and there needs to be areas of the gym that I can put up my 13-foot light stands without being in the traffic pattern of spectators.

This gym suited my needs just fine.

Two strobes fired into the corners of the gym provide me a nice large light source to completely overpower the ambient lighting.

Strobes (shown in the purple circles) fired into the corners of the gym provide all the light needed to light the action.

My shooting position for this match would be in the far right corner of the mat (using photo above as reference).

To trigger the strobes, I use a Pocket Wizard on the hot-shoe of each camera I am using, to be the transmitter and a pocket wizard connected to each strobe which are the receivers. The pop from the strobe is just 1/1100 of a second long.

Positioning myself on the opposite side of the gym, on the same side as my strobes, you can see how different the scene becomes.

The home team bench, ready and waiting.

Once the action starts, I know that wherever on the mat the action goes, I will have consistent light on my subjects. For this match my strobes were full power and I had my camera set at ISO 400; 1/250; f2.8.  Here is the color version of the image from above. My preference is black and white. It draws the eye to the subject(s) and makes the distracting backgrounds less noticeable.

The annual wrestling event — The Battle of Bel Air — featuring The John Carroll School versus Bel Air High School did not fail in bringing excitement right before the Christmas holiday. Over 500 fans filled both sides of the bleachers, and the local television network was on-hand to broadcast each match.

Last year the match ended in a tie, and had to go to criteria and finally at criteria #7, Bel Air was awarded the win. John Carroll was out for revenge. On paper it once again looked like it could end up in a tie again. But matches aren’t wrestled on paper, and John Carroll ended up the victor by a 39-25 score.

Lighting Setup
I setup three remote flashes, mounted on the railings in the bleachers. Two on the same side of the mat I shot from, each in a corner, and one back light on the other side of the gym in the opposite corner I was at, aimed towards the center of the mat. I flagged the back light so that when action was directly across from me, I did not get any flare from the strobe.

The final McDonald’s LPGA Championship was played this past weekend at Bulle Rock Golf Course in Havre de Grace, Maryland. Ironically the winner of the tournament played in just her first LPGA Championship — Swedish rookie Anna Nordqvist.

Here are some images from Sunday’s final round.

The Fallston gym, like most in Harford County, has very little room, and no balcony at the end of court which prevents getting our lights high and pointed parallel to the sidelines. We had to place the lights on the sides, which create too much crosslighting and harsh shadows.

When using strobes/flashes, ideally you want to over power the ambient light by 3 to 4 stops so that when you are shooting at your camera’s sync speed (typically 1/250 sec), the quick burst of light from the strobes is what freezes the action and not the shutter speed. I tried bouncing my 580EXs off the back wall to create a large light source, but my flashes, even on full power, could only muster about 2 stops over ambient. In a darker lit gym, this method would probably work, but Fallston’s ambient lighting is better than average.

I had to stick with direct light from the corners of the gym. I placed my flashes on my 7-foot light stands and set them each to 1/8 power, 28mm zoom and aimed them towards the top of the key.

Here are some samples from the night.

I can finally say, “Yes, I’ve shot an NFL game.”

I’ve shot many high school games, a college game, but they don’t compare to the NFL Experience.   To those who shoot the NFL regularly, it’s probably old hat for you, but for me it was like getting to fly first class after riding in coach all my life.

The first thing that really surprised me was how big these guys are.  Not sure where these guys hang out all week, but I’ve never seen people this enormous at the grocery store or mall.

Photographing the game is pretty much the same — except the players move so much faster, and passes get to their intended receivers (or defensive players) in a blink of an eye.

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My initial reaction was trying to find a large enough porch for a shot like this, but even more challenging would be to find a time when all these guys would be free at the same time (over the summer), to make the shoot. These are high school boys, many who have summer jobs, are on family vacations, or are more interested in hanging with their girlfriends. I offered up a different idea — shoot each wrestler individually with a green screen, cut them out and create the illusion of a group shot. Using this method, each wrestler would be lit under controlled conditions much easier than trying to setup lights on location. This approach provides a way to now come up with any background image to use for the poster. The other advantage, is weather is a non-factor, so no rainout date would have to be planned.

The last day of class for John Carroll was June 6, so I went to the school that day, setup and shot each wrestler that Coach Watson wanted to be in the poster, before they all spread like wildfire after finishing the school year.

I submitted for review, ten different background images, from pastures to buildings, for potential candidates for the final poster. Coach Watson and his staff settled on the stormy clouds version. In addition, he let me know that one of the original wrestlers has transferred to another school and would need to be removed. With the removal of that wrestler, I then rearranged the other guys to balance it out.

Coach Watson wondered if I could add a bolt of lighting to the sky. I played around with Photoshop after Googling for help inspiration and technique from others. I personally like the poster without the lightning, but the coaches loved it, and wanted it included.

The final step was to add the text, and get the final OK.  Once approved, it was time to send the final image to the lab to print the posters.

This was a fun experience, and would gladly accept another project that could utilize the green screen.

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From my observations, I see many folks whip out their pocket camera or digital SLR and just snap away when “Little Johnny” hits the field, most likely capturing many pictures of his back, or becoming unrecognizable because he is so far away and just shows up as a blip on the picture.

With some planning and keeping in mind some of my tips below, you can transform yourself from a sideline snapshooter into a quality sportsshooter, and create photographs worth looking at over and over again. Creating better images will not only make you proud of yourself, you will have cherished images to complement your memories.

Of course, if I were to write down everything I know about shooting sports from equipment to technique, I would end up with a book. However, if you can keep in mind these 10 general tips, you can be well on your way to capturing better sports images. This list should work well for anyone shooting sports outdoors. Indoors brings about a whole new batch of problems — which I will discuss in the future.

1. The Eyes Have It

Having the face and eyes of your subject in the shot are key ingredients to taking a good sports image. Seeing the back of a player is not going to win many awards, and typically ends up in the delete pile. Being able to see the eyes of your subject is what really will connect with the viewer of the picture. How do we read emotion from others? By looking at their face.

Not only should you be watching the action, and waiting for a potential moment for a picture, but be equally aware of when your subject is facing in your general direction. You’ll be surprised how much better with using this tip alone will produce more pleasing images.

2. Location, Location, Location

Just as in real estate, a good sports photograph starts with the location from which you are shooting. Granted, getting onto or near the field of a professional sports event is nearly impossible without proper credentials, many high school and almost all youth sports allow you to get much closer to the action. You may enjoy sitting in the bleachers, or in one location with your personal lawn chair, with your family and friends to visit with during lulls in the action, but trying to take pictures from there, rarely produces good results.

If at all possible, get as close to the sidelines, or playing field area as permitted, and in a position that you feel much of the action of the player(s) you want to photograph will be happening. You can visit with your friends after the game.

3. Be a Snake in the Grass

Don’t be afraid to get on your belly to take pictures. Your subjects look larger than life when you shoot from a lower point of view. Standing up, and shooting down on little ones is not as flattering. Most adults view things in life from between 4 and 6 feet. To create more interesting images, you need to shoot from outside that zone, to give the viewer a different perspective than they normally would see.

If possible, try to shoot from below your subjects eye level. You’ll be surprised the difference this makes in your photographs.

4. Predict the Future (without your crystal ball)

I don’t mean like being able to predict the lottery numbers for next week, but rather knowing enough about the sport or event to have a good bit of confidence when something is going to happen. For example, if you are wanting to capture a soccer goalie in action, you know darn well when the ball is on the other end of the field, you don’t have to be poised and ready to shoot that player.

Anticipating when action will take place is a huge benefit to sports photography. If you are at a baseball game and there is a runner on first base, there is a good chance there will action at first base in the form of a pickoff attempt, or a play at second base by either a steal attempt, or a double play attempt. So, if you can be located on the first base side, near the first base bag and somewhat in line of second base, you are in great position to capture some peak action.

Each sport has it’s subtleties that if you know the sport well, can give you an advantage in knowing what to look for before it happens.

To those with point & shoot cameras with a long delay between the time you press the shutter and the camera actually taking the picture (shutter lag), many situations allow you to pre-focus on an area by pressing your shutter down halfway. By doing this you can eliminate much of the delay, so that when the action is happening, all you have to do it now depress the shutter fully and the camera will fire much faster.

5. What’s That in the Background?

An important issue that most amateur photographers miss is being aware of the background in the area they have positioned themselves. Photographers many times are so fixated on the action, they totally ignore what’s behind the action.

When scouting for locations, be aware of porta-potties, parking lots, trashcans, and the like. Sometimes, just moving a couple feet one way or the other makes a world of difference. It’s only after you’ve gotten home and downloaded your images to your computer do you realize the faux pas you made.

Be aware, that with many of today’s youth fields, finding a background that is clean is nearly impossible, so don’t always expect to succeed in this area.

6. Shoot Tight

Don’t be afraid of chopping off body parts in the frame. Having the full body of your subject is not always needed. The viewer has the ability to fill in that information without it being shown, which allows you, the photographer to zoom in tight and focus in on the face. Looking at the photo above, the photo tells the whole story with just the upper half of the running back in the photo. Through your experience, you know that the player is running past defenders with ball in hand. Being tight on the subject shows the intensity in his eyes that would have been lost if this photograph was shot from a wider angle.

7. Action not Required

Sometimes the best shots are taken away from the main action. Some potential shots can be found on the sidelines with players not in the game, as they are talking with each other, getting a drink or being chewed out by the coach. On the field during timeouts, or other lulls in the action also can tell a story.

Don’t always follow the ball. When a placekicker attempts a field goal, all eyes are on the ball as it flies through the air. A picture of the ball in mid-air is not that exciting, so stay focused on the kicker himself — he will either give you a jube shot as it passes through the uprights, or the “agony of defeat” as it misses the target.

Always be on the lookout for other photo opportunities.

8. Expect the Unexpected

Always keep your camera ready, and your eye on the event. Just because the player you are wanting to photograph is not involved in the action, or is on the sidelines, don’t be caught with your head in the clouds. Something may happen that you don’t want to say, “Oh man, I should of gotten a picture of that?” Granted, it’s easy to lose concentration when you feel nothing is going on that needs your attention, but when something does happen and you capture it — it’s an exhilarating feeling.

9. Take Control of Your Life Camera

This is a subject that a couple chapters in a book would cover, but you will have greater success if you can take control of your camera rather than letting the camera make all the decisions. Setting your camera to the “running man” (sports mode) is not taking control. I highly recommend you sit down with your owner’s manual and learn how to use aperture priority (Av on Canon), shutter priority (Tv on Canon) and yes, even manual mode of your camera.

For sports, I suggest aperture priority, and set your camera to open up to the widest aperture available to you (that means the smallest f-stop number on your camera). This will allow your camera to let in the most light and give you the highest shutter speed to stop the action. What this also does is give you a smaller depth-of-field (DOF), to blur the background and isolate your subject much better.

Sometimes, you may want to get a bit artsy to give show movement. This can be done by panning. Set your camera to shutter priority somewhere around 1/40 of a second (experiment with what works best for what you are photographing). Now, as your subject is moving past you, keep focused on your subject and press the shutter. Keep as steady as possible and keep your subject tracked in your frame throughout the entire opening of the shutter. You should end up with your main subject pretty well in focus, and everything else with that movement sort of blur. To the left is a photo I took of a bowling ball coming down the alley.

If you want complete control of the exposure — use manual mode. This takes all the thinking away from the camera as far as exposure is concerned. With cameras, they can be easily fooled by it’s surroundings. Dark jerseys, white jerseys, bright sky in the background, etc. Unless the clouds are moving in front of the sun often, the light is consistent, so you can set this manually in your camera, which now allows your camera to have less shutter lag, for determining exposure is one less step it has to perform before firing the shot.

10. Post-Game: Learn From Your Mistakes

Take a bunch of pictures, look at them on your computer at home and see your results. You will learn a great deal through critiquing your own work. You will see what works and what doesn’t and each time you go out and shoot, you will improve from the last.

I was there on assignment for The Examiner. I had never been to the HCC gym, so did not know if there would be any place to mount my strobes, so I decided to leave them home, and shoot ambient. With that in mind I loaded my camera bag with my 85 f/1.8 and 135 f/2.0 lenses.

Surprisingly the lighting in the gym wasn’t too bad (as far as gymnasiums go). My camera settings were ISO 1000; f/2.0; 1/500.

The Examiner wanted images of Aberdeen’s two superstars — Devon Saddler and Devon Branch. Devon Saddler’s father saw me waiting for the Girl’s championship game to finish and was telling me how the two Devon’s are slam dunking machines. He then showed me his T-Shirt that had images of both players with “Pick Your Poison” written across the top. I knew I was in for an exciting game.

Normally I like to use my 135 lens, but with the information of them loving to go strong to the basket, I switched to my 85 and setup camp for the game sitting at the corner of the baseline and sideline.

It didn’t take long and the fireworks started. I think Devon Saddler had four in the first half. I was in perfect position to capture the slam dunks and with a clean background to boot!

These two images above are a good example of why people have fits with white balance in a gymnasium. Just look at the wall in the background. Same camera settings, but they produced two different colors. Gym lights are generally fluorescent and actually cycle at 60Hz, so the light output is not constant. The human eye doesn’t notice this pulsating wave of output, but the camera sure does. The best way I have found to get the majority of your shots correct from the get-go is to shoot a gray card at 1/60 second, which allows the lights to complete a full cycle, thus giving you the average light color to use for your custom white balance.

Aberdeen went on to win 66-49 over Elkton which was Aberdeen’s fifth UCBAC championship, which just happens to be the total number of years the UCBAC has been in existence.

Saturday I spent the entire day at the 5th annual Mount Mat Madness tournament. This is one of the toughest high school wrestling tournaments on the east coast. For anyone who loves the sport of wrestling, this is a must-see event.

I was on-hand to shoot some key semi-finals matches as well as all of the championship finals matches.

The lighting inside of the athletic center at CCBC is nothing spectacular, so I brought my trusty speedlight setup with me.

A very nice balcony along one side of the building provided a great location for me to mount my two speedlights. Using superclamps, I could easily mount them to the railing on the balcony.

I set my two Canon 580EXs at 1/4 +0.3 power; 105mm zoom and pointed the lights slightly inward towards the center of the mat and aiming at the far end of the mat. You can see a view from the balcony as they were setting up the mat for the finals. Once the lights were in place, it was time to head down matside to get my camera settings worked out.

I snapped a few shots of people walking across the mat and by checking my histogram on the camera, determined ISO 400; f/5.0; 1/250s was pretty close. I set my WB to daylight and was ready to go.

The finals did not disappoint — there was some fantastic wrestling and I was able to watch it on my belly at the edge of the mat. I’m already looking forward to MMM-VI!

Here are a couple more photos from the finals.

I brought two flashes with me to mount to the railings on the upper level to add a bit more light to the scene. Here is a shot from the other end of the court to show my setup.

I set the flashes to 1/4 power and 70mm zoom. I aimed each towards the center of the court. With this setup, I was able to shoot at ISO 200; f/2.8; 1/250.

UMBC came away with the win 83-65.

If you’ve ever been to an event like this, you would know that horse jumps are spread out over a large area. Typically as a photographer, you can usually find a location to capture two, maybe three jumps at a reasonable distance to produce decent images.

For the first time at an event, I experimented with using a remote camera. It was like being in two places at the same time!

For this shot, I setup my camera about 8 feet away from the side of the jump with my 14mm lens. I used a special cable that connects the camera to one of my Pocket Wizard radio receivers.

I was about 1500 feet away shooting at a different jump, but could see this jump and manually triggered my transmitter as horses made their jumps at this fence. Being 1500 feet away and not having a good angle (horse running away from me) does bring in more challenges — such as knowing exactly when the horse is about to jump. I found myself hitting the trigger button a bit early or late, so I did not always get the “perfect” shot. Now knowing this, I will make sure to setup future remote cameras in locations that I will be able to nail the jump at a higher percentage.

I’m looking forward to my next equestrian event to try this out again.

I was quite pleased with the way this turned out. By looking at the image itself, you would think it was taken on a basketball court floor, rather than a basement studio.

Below shows how the shot was setup:

Dave Hoffmann / For The Baltimore Examiner - Suzann Pettersen pumps her arm after sinking her par putt on the 18th hole to win the LPGA Championship at Bulle Rock Golf Course in Havre de Grace on June 10, 2007

Beautiful weather brought out the best in these professional golfers. In the end, Suzann Pettersen was 1-shot better than Karrie Webb and was crowned the 2007 LPGA Championship winner.