Briann Grier

Chapter 6 Sports
A good sports photographer watches the action but doesn’t stop when the final whistle

blows. Photographers look for that “afterglow” effect, this happens sometime after a tense

game which is a good action shot.

Shooters sometimes run onto the field after the game with a wide-angle lens in order to

be in the middle of the players’ jubilation or dejection. Others stand back with a long lens.

What is happening on the bench can be as interesting as what is happening on the field.

Often but not always off-limits, the locker room can provide a venue for pictures.

A caption for the pictures should answer the five Ws plus the H: Who? What? When?

Where? Why? and How?

The news approach to sports usually involves getting sharp, freeze-frame action shots of

players hanging suspended in midair, grasping for the ball. Sometimes this literal approach robs

the sports photo of its most vital element—the illusion of motion. A more impressionistic

feature approach can add drama and reinforce motion in a still photograph. Certain camera

techniques can heighten the effect.

Sports photography requires specialized technical skills because of the speed Four

factors affect the apparent speed of a subject and therefore determine the minimum shutter

speed to stop motion, the actual speed of the subject, the apparent distance between subject

and camera, the focal length of the lens, and the angle of movement relative to the camera’s

axis.
 With some movements, it is possible to stop the action at a relatively slow shutter speed

by timing the shot to coincide with a momentary pause in the subject’s motion. Athletes in

some sports come to an almost complete stop at the peak of their movement. Consequently,

you can use a relatively slow shutter speed and still get a sharp picture.

Continuous shooting mode allows firing a series of frames without lifting your finger

from the shutter button. Every sports photographer interviewed for this book uses continuous

mode when shooting, although some report occasionally missing the peak action. For sports,

you will want to first put your camera on continuous autofocus. This setting allows the camera

to continuously focus on a moving subject Canon and Nikon both deploy their multi-sensor

focusing points to more accurately track unpredictable movement, such as when a player

suddenly runs toward the side-lines. Canon refers to its system as AI servo (Artificial Intelligence

servo). Nikon refers to it as Dynamic Area Autofocus.

When using a weighty, awkward 300mm, 400mm, or 600mm lens, always attach your

mono or tripod to the mount on the lens itself, not to the camera body. Attaching the support

to the camera stresses the connection between the camera and lens. The weight of the lens can

actually bend or break the connection.

In addition to 200mm and 400mm lenses, some photographers carry an extra body with

a 50mm or 35mm wide-angle attached for moments when the action comes toward them. The

wide-angle is also useful at the end of the game, when the team carries the coach on its

shoulders or slumps away in defeat. Photographers are freer to roam before a game begins.

Many shooters arrive early to capture unguarded moments as the players warm up.
 Chapter 4 PHOTOGRAPHY AS A TOOL FOR SOCIAL

REFORM

Beginning in 1890, Jacob Riis photographed the poverty, crime, filth, sweatshops,

and unsafe housing on New York City’s Lower East Side. His photographs, articles, and

slide lectures eventually prompted city officials to improve sanitation and education and

replace some of the tenements.

The first book in America to use photomechanical reproduction extensively, it

published seventeen photographs and an additional eighteen engravings based on

photographs.

In 1907, Paul Kellogg hired Hine to photograph for a sociological survey of

Pittsburgh. The work was published in Kellogg’s Charities and Commons. As Kellogg

changed his journal’s name to the Survey and later the Survey Graphic, he continued to

publish Hine’s images and writing. Hine quit teaching to work full time for the NCLC.

He photographed children working in coal mines, textile mills, cotton fields, and

food- processing plants. He recorded newsies hawking their papers late at night on the

streets of metropolitan cities and telegraph boys whose deliveries took them into houses

of prostitution. He documented children who had lost an arm or leg in industrial

accidents.

FSA photographers advanced this humanism by controlling the contents of their

images. To appreciate this requires recognizing what is not shown. Many people in FSA
photographs appear be-wildered, despondent, dirty, and disheveled, but never dishonest,

abusive, or immoral. Many appear forlorn, but never hopeless. No one appears

belligerent, ignorant, lazy, or rebellious. To achieve this consistent portrayal, FSA

photographers carefully selected their subjects, framed their compositions, timed their

shutters, and edited their film, choosing frames that best matched the agency’s purpose.

Stryker punched holes in negatives that did not meet his standards.

If the FSA photographers’ approach was humanist, their style was realist.

Following the tenets of straight photography, the dominant movement of the 1920s, many

rejected staging their subjects while making the exposure and manipulating the negatives

or prints during darkroom processing. Realism dovetailed with the common

misconception that a photograph shows viewers what they would have seen if they had

been present. Although they took advantage of this naive belief, many FSA

photographers neither believed nor claimed their pictures were objective. They

acknowledged they were pursing truth from their own subjective points of view. Like

many Americans during the era, they believed subjective truth had greater value than

objective facts. So long as the photograph got the connotation correct, its denotation need

not be literal. FSA photographer John Vachon argued strongly that documentary

photographers must bring their own personal perspective and feeling to the subject.

Lange adopted Taylor’s research methods, producing extensive verbal reports to

accompany her photographs. When she worked alone, she took copious notes and

carefully reconstructed conversations after she finished photographing.