Jordan High vs Palm Desert - CIF Playoffs 2nd Round

Covered the 2nd round of the CIF Playoffs for boys soccer with Jordan High going against Palm Desert at Jordan High School.

This was a very aggressive game on both sides, which provided me with some nice action to capture.

I haven't been covering much sports action lately, so it was nice to get out and shoot this game.  I used my new Canon 7D Mark II for this game and felt better with it and the controls.  I think this is going to be a great addition to my gear.

Please enjoy the shots as much as I enjoyed taking them. 

Lakewood Varsity Boys Soccer vs Jordan

Man was it great to just get outside and shoot some sports, I didn't care what.  I've been a bit under the weather since the weekend of New Years and just haven't been excited to get out.  I did get out Sunday evening for some sunsets, but I really needed to get out and shoot something challenging - well like sports.  In this case soccer.

 

I was off, the weather was perfect outside, so I checked our high school schedule for soccer and found a game I could cover.  Oh and when I say the weather was perfect I mean I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, sorry to all my friends in the mid west.

 

Here are some of my favorites from the game.

 

Lakewood Varsity Girls Soccer vs Jordan

Its been slow for me since football season has ended mostly to I haven't had a big desire to get out on my own to shoot some sports.  Been enjoying the down time and shooting other things, such as my beach sunsets.

 

Recently I was asked by the paper I shoot for to cover a girls soccer game.  Now I was asked to cover Poly and Millikan at Poly, but this game was cancelled due to standing water on the field, so I was directed to Lakewood to cover their game.

Been some time since I've shot some soccer, but it was great being out shooting a game.

 

Below are a few of my favorites from the game - enjoy.

 

Lakewood Girls Varsity Soccer vs Jordan

To view and order pictures from this event, just click on the above title.

Before I start with this soccer game I must say I didn't think I would be shooting Lakewood's Girls Varsity games this season. I was asked prior to shoot some action of the Lakewood Boys Varsity Basketball team and noticed while heading to the school on two occasions that their soccer season has already started. During the last two years I've been asked to shoot the girls varsity soccer team and put together a dvd slideshow for their end-of-year banquet, but this year I never received a phone call or email. So I just assumed that I wasn't going to be out there shooting their games.

That was until this last weekend when I received an email for the teams booster club president asking if I would come out and shoot the girls in action. I must say I was rather happy that I got that email as I really enjoy shooting these girls. This will be my third year doing so and they have really enjoyed the slideshows that I have put together for them.

Now back to this game. This was their third season game and was one of those games that they were expected to win, which in my case works out great. This allows me to capture some of the girls who don't normally get much game play. So here are some of my favorites from the game.

You've heard of BOB (ball on bat), well this is a BOF (ball on face) shot.

In Soccer the action moves up and down the field very fast making it very hard to capture all players of the game in action. To increase your chances of capturing a particular player in action you can follow them, keeping your camera on them, but if your trying to capture as many as possible, or all of the players in action then you need to adapt to the game and position yourself to get the various players.

For the two below shots I wanted to capture the goalie in action, but I knew in advance that the team they were playing were not going to get the ball towards the goal much if any. So knowing this I arrived at the game early, which I recommend highly, and captured some shots of the goalie while warming up. So now you know my trick to capturing great action shots of the goalie. Get there early and shoot them while their warming up. This was a good thing as this goalie never touch the ball once the game started.

Girls Varsity Soccer "Lakewood vs Jordan"

What a day to shoot some soccer action. We've been having some nice rain these last couple days and I didn't think this game was going to happen, but we had a reprieve. The sky looked terrible but no rain, so I decided to hit the school and see if the game was on. Sure enough the game was on. The girls were out there all bundled and huddled up to keep warm and once I got out of the car to get my gear ready I became very aware why. "It was Cold", I felt so bad for those girls.

Well, the rain kept away throughout the game giving me some nice opportunities for some nice action. I had to shoot at higher ISO's but that's just not a problem anymore.

For this game I shot at aperture priority (f/2.8) with an ISO of 200 to 1000. I just keep my shutter speed at or above 1/1000.

Lakewood vs Jordan

This game was an away game at Jordan High School. I didn't plan on attending this game but was having a rough day at work so I left early to shoot it. Getting out there shooting a game cheers me up no matter how bad a day I've had. Any hoot, the weather was terrible with dark clouds overhead just waiting to unleash their load, it did sprinkle a bit, but nothing bad.


For these shots I used the beast (300mm) with my camera set at aperture priority, f/2.8. My ISO started at 400 and ended at 1600. It got dark pretty quick with the sun going down and dark clouds overhead.