Once unloaded, I went and had 2 cubic yards of mulch loaded into the back of the truck, to finish my landscaping project I have been working on.

After countless trips with the wheelbarrow, loading it with mulch, and then spreading it out in the proper areas, my energy was depleting.

Finally, after cutting the lawn and cleaning up inside the shed, I called it quits. Well actually my back made that decision for me.

As I was sitting on the deck taking a rest, I looked up at the mid-day sun and immediately had a vision of a picture I wanted to create. I went inside, grabbed my camera, lightstand, two pocket wizards and a flash.

I first dialed in the exposure on the sky I wanted to achieve to get the starburst and keep my shutter speed at sync speed, which was ISO 50; 1/200; f/16. Next, I setup my flash on the lightstand, set it to 1/4 power and took some test shots, moving the light to produce the proper exposure of my hand.

The hardest part was trying to get my finger positioned on the sun without blinding myself in the process. Yes, it’s a goofy picture, but it was much more fun to do that than put down mulch.

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The fact is, these plastic devices that you attach to the end of your flash are not softening the light coming out of your flash.

Light itself is neither hard or soft. It’s photons flying through the air in a straight line. The only way to create softer shadows is to make the apparent size of the light source in relation to your subject larger. This can be done, for example with soft boxes and umbrellas placed near your subject. Another method, if you are indoors, is by bouncing the light up into the ceiling or into a wall, which will bounce back much larger light source than the small size of your on-camera flash.

You can also use these plastic flash diffusers to aid in softening the light indoors. What these attachments do, is send the light spraying out in all directions, which in turn, bounce off everything, causing light to fall upon your subject from many directions to produce the look of softer light.

Now, are you heading outside to shoot with on-camera flash? The first thing you should do is take your plastic diffuser off (if it’s attached), and shove it in your pocket, camera bag, or wherever else you feel like shoving it.

Contrary to popular belief, a piece of translucent plastic that scatters light in all directions without nearby surfaces to reflect the scattered light back into the scene, will not soften the light. A diffuser outdoors — a large majority of the time — simply wastes light, reduces range, slows recycle times and eats batteries.

The light that will hit your subject will be the light that starts at your flash and heads straight at your subject. All the other light spreading out in all other directions will not have anything to bounce back from and will just go to waste. If you think that bouncing off the clouds is worth a try, fahgettaboutit, that’s a lesson in futility.

Outdoors, use your on-camera flash as fill, and shoot direct. Your mileage may vary, but by setting your flash to ETTL mode with a FEC of -1 1/3 to -2, should yield some very nice results.

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Taking photographs of fireworks is fun and relatively simple.

Last night I brought my camera, 70-200 lens and a tripod out to see the fireworks from South Hampton Middle school in Bel Air, with my family. I setup my camera to shoot in “bulb” mode (which means the shutter stays open for as long as my finger is depressing the shutter, and shuts as soon as I let off), ISO 100 and f/11. Set the lens to manual focus and waited for the show to start.

Once the first few projectiles hit the sky, I could then point the camera in the right direction and get my focus set. At that point, it was just a matter of holding down the shutter for as long as one, two, or several explosions appear in the sky. If your camera doesn’t have “bulb” mode, set your exposure time long (4-10 seconds).

I know there are many cities and towns shooting fireworks off tonight, Saturday, July 5th — so there is still time for you to try this out for yourself, rather than having to wait a whole year.

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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.

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.

This shot was taken at 6:50p — about 20 minutes after sunset.

To make the sky look even more blue, I set my camera’s white balance to tungsten. The rest of the camera settings were 1/4 sec SS, ISO 200, f/5.6.

I also used two off-camera strobes, both with a CTO gel to match my tungsten setting of the camera. One Vivitar 285 at 1/8 power on lightstand about 15 feet in front of left side of house. Second Vivitar 285 at 1/2 power in my right hand over my head pointed at front door area.

This technique works great for portraits taken at dusk with the sky in the background.

In looking down the fence and knowing I had my 135 f/2.0L lens on my camera, I thought I’d take a very low depth of field picture on a long fence railing — and see what sort of an image would come of it.

I focused down the fence about 4 feet away and snapped this shot. You can see very clearly what a narrow depth of field produces. The depth of field at f/2.0 from 4 feet away is only about 1/8″ in front and behind the focus point. The small area in-focus looks more like stitches rather than wood.

This narrow depth of field is really great when taking portraits, for you can focus on the eyes and have the entire background blurred out to not distract from the subject. This blurring of the image produced by the lens is called bokeh. If taking a group of people, a very narrow depth of field is not what you will want to achieve, for one person may be in focus, but the other subject will be blurry.

Sounds simple, right? Yes, and No.

The simple part is that your subject is very good at standing very still — for as long as you need (duh, it’s hanging on the wall)

The difficult part is lighting the oil painting without causing hotspots, reflections, etc. Other factors are that the portrait is hanging about seven feet off the ground in a dark paneled hallway with a 18-20 foot ceiling. The courthouse has a very large number of portraits hanging throughout, and I’m not sure if it is because most of these paintings are so old, or if they were originally painted this way, or if the lighting inside the building isn’t optimal for these portraits, but they are appear very dark from the naked eye. I was initially a bit concerned.

I brought my 13 foot lightstands, not knowing before I arrived exactly where and how high this portrait was hanging in the courthouse. I lit the painting with two 580EXs bounced into white umbrellas placed approximately 30 degrees to each side about 5-6 feel away. The strobes where fired wireless with Pocket Wizards.

Another challenge was getting myself high enough to shoot the portrait straight on. I’m sure it was quite a sight to see me standing on 2 reams of paper, which were on top of a step ladder (please don’t attempt this at home). I must have been slightly entertaining for I had my share of on-lookers during all of this.

I was very pleased with the results from my first effort at photographing an oil painting. The lighting I applied really brought out more detail than you can see in when viewing the painting in person. If/when I do this again, I think I will put the lights in a much lower angle, such as 10 degrees with the umbrellas almost shooting back at each other.

I really enjoyed the company of all of the folks I interacted with at the courthouse. Everyone was extremely pleasant and had a great sense of humor.

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: