Lakewood Volleyball

Since my son has been attending Lakewood High School I've been photographying a lot of their sports, including football / softball / wrestling / and soccer. Well now I get to add volleyball to that list. The coach of the girls varsity volleyball team saw the work I did for the boys and girls varsity soccer team consisting of my action shots and the DVD slideshow I put together and asked if I would do the same for the girls varsity volleyball team. I really wanted to do this but the girls volleyball and football run at the same time, although the volleyball teams has twice as many games in the same period of time.


I contacted the coach and worked out a schedule of possible game I could make starting with a tournament at Mater Dai High School in Santa Ana this last Tuesday. There was three schools there and each team played three games against each school. I was able to get some shots of the Jr. Varsity team and the varsity team.


All of these shots were taken with the 300 f/2.8 lens. I was only allowed to stand at either end of the court and wanted to get the range the 300 provides. My camera (Canon MK IIn) was set at aperture priority f/2.8 with an ISO of 1600 to give me the speed I wanted.

Lakewood Midget Football vs Montebello

This last week was busy one. Here I am getting excited that football was going to start, my son was starting JV and I couldn't wait to get out there and shoot some action. Thursday was the freshmen game. Friday was back-to-back games. First there was the JV game then the varsity game. While at shooting the JV and varsity game was asked to shoot a midget football game by a friend of mine who also shoots the Lakewood games. So Saturday evening I went back to Lakewood to shoot a midget football game, the fourth one in three days. Needless to say I took a bunch pictures.


Here are a few shots from the midget game. These kids are the next generation of players for Lakewood.

John at La Costa Canyon

Just wanted to share some shots of my boy during his game against La Costa Canyon.

Lakewood JV vs La Costa Canyon - Week 1

As shone in the two prior posts, Lakewood started their preseason against La Costa Canyon this last week. I'd like to see all three of our teams win but when I comes down to it the only team I really care about is the JV team and that because my son is playing for them.


The JV team is mostly made up of our freshmen team from last year and last year for our opening game we lost against La Costa Canyon, so we they had some pay back coming. Last year they beat us 21-7 and this year it was a complete turn around with us beating them 20-7.


So here are some shots to showcase the action of this win.

Friday Night Lights - Varsity vs La Costa Canyon

Last year I was able to photograph about 5 of the varsity games and this year I hope to photograph all of them, which is 14 games.


As a sports photographer I'd like to think that I have a great eye for the action and know what to look for to get a nice shot, but there is always room to grow and learn more. Now this last Friday was our Jr. Varsity and Varsity games, which were back-to-back. The JV played at 5pm and the Varsity played at 7:30 pm. I will be posting some shots from the varsity game first.


This was my first night game since football last year and I really need to get things such as lighting worked out. For the first game I choise not to use the flash. I ended up shooting at aperture priorty at f/2.8 with an ISO of 1600 and afte looking at the pictures the noise wasn't that bad. For the next night game I plan on trying the flash and hopefully by mid-season the latest I will have all worked out.