Lakewood Varsity Football vs Peninsula

This Friday marked our second pre-season game, which was against Peninsula. For this game I tried something new with my flash. I've been reading about sports photographers who are attaching their flash to their monopod, which eliminates or at least lessens red-eye. I purchased a super clamp that I attached to my monopod about 2 to 2 1/2 feet below my camera and a stud to attach my flash cord to. I had my flash and camera set to manual. The flash was at 1/2 power and attached to a battery pack. My camera was set to ISO 3200, f/2.8, with a shutter between 1/400 and 1/620. When I took shots of the players on the sideline and the cheerleaders I adjusted my shutter to 1/1200.

So with all that said, here are a some of my favorites.

Lakewood Freshmen Football vs Peninsula

Week two finds me shooting the Freshmen game at Lakewood High against visiting Peninsula High. Last week's game against Crenshaw was a tough one for this Lakewood team with them losing 48-0. This week found them on the other side of the game with a win.

Here are some of my favorites from this game.

Lakewood Varsity Football vs Peninsula

I had every intention not to go to this game. It was an away game on a Friday afternoon. Yes you heard me right, Friday afternoon (3pm). I had to work and Fridays were usually at minimals when it comes to personnel. I was a bit disappointed that I was going to miss an afternoon varsity game, but that how things go sometimes.

So I'm at work doing my thing when our building does a generator check, which shuts down our computer server. Well, without the server I am unable to input information into our system, which is all I could do at that time. So with no fix in the near future I made arrangements to leave early. I rushed home, got my gear, and headed out for the game. I was very pleased that I was able to make and capture the varsity in action without the bad lightning that is so associated with varsity games. So enjoy the pictures.

As I've said numerous times I will get to a game early to capture some shots of players I don't normally cover. Here is a shot of the kicker warming up. The player catching the ball is a running back, who will catch for the kicker during warm up.

Just a few shots of the receivers while they warmed up.

This was almost a fumbled punt return. Both of these players tried to catch the kickoff and fumbled it briefly until #19 captured it and ran for daylight.

There are no footballs in this shot, but what I like about it is how #19 looks like he is twisting off the head of the other player. OUCH!

A nice fumble recovery.

I really like how this shot turned out. I wanted a shot of the placekicker and kicker in action but with the defender rushing in from the outside, I feel it just pushed this shot to the next level.

#71 is a friend of my son's and played side-by-side with him during their freshmen and sophomore years, but due to an injury my son did not play this year. #71 is a great kid and regardless if he or his family buys pictures I will make extra effort to get nice shots of him in action. In this shot he has a great block while the ball carrier runs past him through the hole. Thought his was a nice open shot of him with the runner in the background.

For me this is one of those money shots. Not in the sense that it's a great capture or shows a lot of action, but it's a shot of a player who's family has supported me during the last two years while shooting Lakewood football. Whenever possible I try to get nice shots of the players who's parents purchase pictures. I had great positioning during this and had an unobstructed view of the center (#55). Having the QB in tight and looking over his shoulder just added to this shot and made it more than just a shot of the center.

When I'm out there shooting football I will have a particular shot that I'm looking for and will pick my positioning based on what I am trying to achieve. When I took this shot I was attempting to capture the defense (red/white) rushing in for the sack, which they did many times during this game. Also when shooting for a particular shot I find that I will get shots that I didn't initially see or plan for. This is one of those shots. Once I got home and started to process my RAW files I saw this capture. At first I passed it over, but I later went back to it and thought with a tighter crop this can make an interesting shot. So here is the end result.

What is a football game without the cheerleaders. I know I have said that before, but cheerleaders do go hand-in-hand with football, especially for the varsity games. They have such energy and give it their all each and every game, so it's only fair that I show them as well.

Lakewood JV Football vs Peninsula

This is week two of football for me and started with the Jr. Varsity on Thursday. This was their second pre-season game and they played against Peninsula at home. Lakewood kicked some serious butt this game and provided me with some great action.

Before the game started I took some time to take some warm-up shots of the receivers. I usually don't take too many of them during the game and this gives me the opportunity to capture them in action.

Here's the action. I used two cameras on this game. The first set up was my Mark IIn with the 300 f/2.8L, which I added my 1.4x to for some added range and the second set up I used my new 40D with my 70-200 f/2.8L. I was kneeling for all of these shots and loved the perspective it game me.

Normally I don't think I would have posted this shot, but after taking a closer look you can see that the player in red is just about to lose his helmet. Now his helmet doesn't ever come off fully but looking at this shot you may not know that.

Every once in awhile you get a shot that just want you to play. This doesn't have the action but it does have the depth and a nice look to it. So I decided to run it through LucisArts for a little fun.