Lakewood Girls Varsity Soccer vs Jordan

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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.

Long Beach Middle School Boys Basktball All-City Championship

I had the opportunity to shoot the Long Beach Middle School Boys Basketball Championship games. There were two games, the first being the Division I Finals and the second being the Division II Finals. Both were great games with all four teams giving it their all.

Division II Long Beach Middle School Boys Basketball All-City Champions

Tincher Tigers

Here are a couple shots to share from this first game.

Division I Long Beach Middle School Boys Basketball All-City Champions

Hughes Owls

This was a very close game and came down to the last minute. Both teams played a very tough game, which was very exciting to watch. Here are some action shots to share.

Lakewood Boys Varsity Basketball vs Millikan

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Game two and much better. After my disappointment from the first game I tried some different things and settings. For starters I used my flash, which I bounced off the ceiling. I also made sure I brought my battery pack for my flash, which helps the recycle time and allows me to fire off more shots.

Another adjustment I made was to be more selective in my shots. Instead of firring off a bunch of sequences, I watched and anticipated the action and fired off one shot at a time. The up side is a limited number of pictures to go through and edit. The down side, not a lot to choose from. So here are my favorites from the game.

This first was taken as this kid jumped out of bounds to save the ball, which he succeeded in.

Lakewood Boys Varsity Basketball vs Poly

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High school basketball has taken off and I have been asked to capture some action shots of the Lakewood boys varsity team. It is times like this when I wish I had the Nikon D3 with it high quality and ability to shoot at very high ISO's. The lighting at Lakewood is terrible at best and really feels as though I'm shooting in a dungeon.

For the first half of this game I shot without a flash with my camera in manual mode (f/2.8, ISO 3200, shutter of 1/250 - 1/320). Actually this is how I shot the first period. During the second period I tried to compensate by shooting at a -2 exposure to get a little faster speed. I would just add those two exposure stops in Lightroom during processing and during the second half it was all with an on-camera flash. I just bounced the flash off the ceiling to avoid the harsh lighting and hard shadows in the background.

Once home I had the chance to take a look at the results and was very disappointed. For the shots I obtained in the first half the pictures were just way to grainy. Not happy with these at all. Now the shots taken from the second half were much better and cleaned up nicely with NoiseWare. The only problem I had with the flash is the recycle rate, which was very slow as I forgot to bring my battery pack (Live and learn).

Here are just two shots from that game to share. I have another game this Friday and will be shooting with the flash and batter pack. This will give me a higher / faster recycle rate and better pictures.

Family Portraits

While some guys are getting together on Saturday night to play poker or hit the clubs with some friends I got together with some great friends to play dungeon & dragons. Yes you read it right, "Dungeon & Dragons". I have been playing d&d since high school and continue to play with my same friends. As a matter of fact three of our kids, one being my son, plays with us. What ever preconceived thought you had of d&d, just throw it out. We are your normal day to day guys who have great families. Playing d&d is more of a reason for a bunch of friends to get together and have fun and fart, because we all know that when you put a bunch of guys together, there is bound to be some farting going on, but enough of that.

While most of our kids are getting older and are in high school, one of my friends kid will be turning one later this month. I have been wanting to take some family pictures of his new family since the little guy was born and thought this weekend would be the perfect time. I also had a request from another one of my buddies to take some pictures of his daughter and her child, who will be one in April. They live in Anaheim Hills and very close to Yorba Linda Regional Park, which has nice ponds and tree lines. So the plan was to get together in the afternoon to take some portraits and then hang out and play d&d.

That leads me to the pictures. This first group of shots are of my friend and his son Issac. He is such a great kid and so very mellow. I started with some basic family shots, but did have a few shots that I really wanted to try and see how they would come out.

The following four shots are what I really wanted to achieve. I don't remember where I saw this first picture, but I thought this would make a great shot of the connection between a father and son.

These next two shot, well what can I say. Take a look at these and tell me they don't put a big smile on your face. I wanted to see the excitement and joy that a young kid has when being tossed into the air, there's no fear, just a little guy having fun.

This next set of pictures is of my niece and her son A.J. Now she isn't really my niece, but her dad and I have been friends since the first grade and all of our kids call each of us uncle. I mean we have been though so much together we might as well be brothers. This is his second daughter and her son, who will be one in April.

I was looking for a moment here. A special time that is shared between a child and his mom. There are no faces to look at, just a moment captured, something they can cherish for the rest of their lives.

Now while we were out at the park taking these portraits I saw this Egret near the water. You all know I just couldn't pass this up and had to take some shots. After I took a few shots of it just standing on a rock I had my son walk towards it to cause it to fly away. I was hoping for a nice action shot of it taking off, but it didn't work and everything was blurred, but I was able to capture a nice shot of it in flight as it came back through the trees. A reason to remind me why I need to have my camera with me more often.