Extreme sledding

Keeping it all in the family with a brother and sister sledding crash.

I have been interested in photographing sledding for as long as I can remember. There are just so many cool possibilities when it comes to sledding that I am like a kid in a candy store when I get the opportunity to shoot sledding.

-There is great opportunity for cool light, (and it can pretty much suck too) depending on the time of day you are out shooting.
-Backgrounds can be terrific even if it is the side of a viaduct, like the image above.
-There is a possibility for great speed.
- Colors of the sleds, parkas, hats, and snow can make for some vibrant images.
-There are great faces kids and adults alike.

but the real reason for shooting sledding is....FOR THE WRECKS!!!!

I enjoy shooting sledding for the same reason I used to enjoy shooting auto racing. It is all about the crashes! If you tell me that you watch NASCAR or IRL because you want to see who wins you are either lying or you are in some sort of pool. Sledding is the same way when you have a camera in your hand.

Sure, you can make cute sledding photos of little kids sliding down a hill but the best photos come when they get a little older, heavier, and gravity moves them a LOT faster!

I recommend using the longest lens you have. It keeps the backgrounds clean and gives good separation between your subject and the background. Longer lenses combined with fast shutter speeds and small apertures will help your image scream "SPEED". When you are able to freeze pieces of snow in mid-air you get a real sense of action.

I also suggest that you experiment with the angle you are shooting from both in relation to the light and also to the sledder. Very few good images are taken from the top of the hill so plant your self a the bottom and be ready to move if you have a sledder come at you at high speed with little control. (Another reason longer lenses are good. They give you escape time.)

 

Make sure that you dress for the cold. Shooting sledding can be addicting and you many just find yourself saying "I will go after one more run" over and over. The most important thing is to have warm feet and hands. There are many times I have returned from shooting some amazing extreme sledders with numb fingers and toes!

As a newspaper photographer I can only shoot what I find. You on the other hand have the freedom to manipulate the situations asking sledders to sled a specific part of the hill or hit a specific jump that you may have even helped construct in an effort to get the "ultimate" sledding photo.

Sleds in the air are a necessary ingredient to the recipe of making a good, exciting and action-packed sledding photo. So maybe you will want to keep a shovel in your trunk to not only help you if you get stuck but to help get that amazing sled-wreck shot!

And for the record, no animal was injured in the making of the above images. However, many a sledder when calling it a day made their way home with a host of new bumps and bruises.

Playmakers III

DHPH quarterback, Chris Sandoval.

Some times less really IS more.

Trying to come up with a dramatic portrait for the sport of football is something that many other photographers have been very successful at, I on the other hand have struggled.

I had been looking for ideas in every place I could think of prior to my heading out to Dolores Huera Preparatory High School to photograph Scorpion quarterback, Chris Sandoval. And honestly, I had no idea what I was going to do other than drag the kid out into the nearby prairie.

(I mean, heck, he is a Scorpion right?)

There was nothing too exciting about the day, it was warm and sunny and their wasn't a cloud in the sky. So the whole dramatic cloud-filled sky photo wasn't going to work and when I looked to the west all I could see was that incredibly bright sun!

I figured maybe I'd just use what I was being given. There was no way I was going to get any kind of image of this kid with him looking into the sun unless I wanted a photo of him with his eyes closed, which I didn't.

I thought of what it might look like if I had him with his back to the sun and stood in silhouette. With him being six foot-plus tall, he made for a powerful looking silhouette. Then I figured I would want to see his face so I would have to do some lighting. The sun was so bright that I had to use my flash at full power. At first I tried to use two flashes, but that was too much light on the body of my subject so I went to one strobe and moved it a little closer to him. I really make use of the fact that you can zoom the strobe in and out. In this case I zoom it to the max which is 135mm (or maybe 105mm) to get as much light on the subject in a small area.

Quarterback and a flash.

When you shoot a photo like this and you don't have anyone assisting you, the key is to stand in your subject's shadow. Otherwise there is going to be all sorts of lens flare and the image just won't work. I am glad that Chris is so tall because it allowed me to step back and stand in the very top of his shadow when I took this photo.

I use Pocket Wizard radio remotes to trigger the SB-800 strobes that I use to light my subjects, this allows me to stand a ways away and use longer lenses. I used a 70-200mm lens to shoot this photo. It is one of my favorite lenses and I would say that I use it more than 50% of the time.

I used the cloning tool in Photoshop to remove the barb wire fencing that was behind my subject. I wouldn't normally do this, but the Playmakers are stylized images and to get the looks that I go for in these portraits, I do some altering in Photoshop. I don't do this kind of thing in my regular daily news and sports photos. They are all straight up un-retouched other than the things that you could do in an enlarger such as toning and cropping.

The entire time I spent on this set up, photo, and tear down was about 30 minutes. Now I will spend hours trying to figure out what I will do for next year's football portrait, and after all that, I may scrap the plan and just wing it in the hopes of doing the player justice. 

Playmakers II

Mitch Klomp and Mattie Jesmain

One of the most difficult sports to photograph in my mind is running. I don't say this because I dislike the sport, I don't. It is just that there is very little photographic variety in the sport of running other than the lighting, backgrounds, and locations for the subjects.

I mean, how different is running from year to year or season to season? I consider it a challenge to make an image of cross country athletes that is unique. This year I thought I'd put both the boy and the girl runner into a single image. That, in and of itself was different.

Then I wanted to find a suitable background for the photo. I chose the sailboard beach at Lake Pueblo State Park. If you follow the Playmakers from year to year you may have already noticed that this is one of my favorite places to shoot these portraits. I have used Liberty Point above the park several times. For me the view from there just never gets old!

Mattie from Pueblo West High School and Mitch from Pueblo South High School were really good sports for this shoot. The sun was setting fast and it was getting a bit chilly so I had to be pretty quick to set up and get the photo I wanted.

I found a place on the beach that had the background that I wanted and I set my lights up. There are two lights for this image. One on either side. They are flashes mounted on lightstands and pointed directly at the runner. This made for some nice separation from the background and the light that was spilling over from each flash did a nice job of lighting the back of the opposing runner.

Casualties of this photo shoot.

The only problem with the section of beach that I chose was that it was only about three strides wide. After that you were in a bunch of mud. And to be honest, there was another problem and that was to be in the location that I needed to be in to make the photo, I had to stand in that mud.

I don't know what is in that mud, but it sure did a number on my shoes! The paper was kind enough to replace my shoes since they were pretty much un-wearable after that.

The runners measured their steps and after one stride would do what I call a leap-stride. I wanted the part of their stride where both of their feet were off of the ground. That really isn't that tough to do if you are just shooting one runner, but when you are trying to get two runners to do that at the same time, it becomes all about the timing.

The sun was setting and the light was going away fast so we were working pretty quick and Mattie and Mitch were very patient with me. I would have them do it a couple of times, then I'd make an adjustment and they would do it a few more times, and the cycle would repeat until I figured that we had lost the light necessary for the sky and background.

Both of these kids are skilled athletes and were able to do what I asked them which allowed me to not have to worry about them, but mostly about me and my shoes. Ha!

There are always things that you might do differently or something you'd wish you had thought of when you do a photo like this, and this situation was no different.

Next time I think I would try to do a better job of scouting my location so as to not lose another pair of shoes.

The day I shot two priests and got away with it.

Msgr Delaney

When I first started working as a photojournalist, I looked down upon portrait photographers. I never want to be one of "them". That kind of photography was just beneath me. Now after years and years of making images for a daily newspaper I have come to the conclusion that I AM a portrait photographer. who knew?

The majority of the photo assignments that I get when I am at work are of the portrait variety. So I have come to the conclusion that instead of trying to avoid doing portraits, I may as well admit that I actually enjoy doing "that" kind of photography.
This past Wednesday I had the opportunity to photography two priests. Each of them continue to say mass in the Pueblo area. One of them is in his 80s and the other is a centenarian. I wanted to photograph them in a way that lent itself to their calling, faith and longevity.

Monsignor, Delaney was the first of the two that I photographed. He is 100 years old and still very much "with it". When I arrived Chieftain reporter Loretta Sword was just meeting him in the office he shares at the parish. I was introduced to him and was asked where I'd like to photograph Msgr. Delaney, I asked if we might be able to use the church's sanctuary. So we moved into the church. I took a look around and the magnificent sanctuary and decided while I liked the stained glass windows in the rear of the room, I liked the faux painted wall and the virgin Mary that were on the stage area behind the pulpit.

Beauty dish

I put one speedlight flash on a light stand to my left and pointed it in Msgr. Delaney's direction. I and used a "beauty dish" to soften the light giving him a very natural look. The beauty dish as a diffuser that can be stretched over the entire front of the dish which I also used to soften the light even more for this photo. The soft light spilled past him and lit the likeness of the virgin Mary that was behind him. I played with this for a while working to get enough light on both my subject AND the background.

I didn't want to allow too much of the ambient light into the photo because it had a green cast to it that I wanted to avoid. To do this I wanted to make sure that there is enough light coming from the strobe to completely light my background. The tones in the photo were all on the brownish-red part of the spectrum and I think that worked here especially because of his skin tone and the clothes that the subject was wearing.

To get everything to kind of work for this image I shot it from a low angle to get the background likeness where I wanted it to be in relation to the subject. I really like to incorporate my subjects' hands into my portraits so using the cane for his hands was a no-brainer. I just asked if he'd put his hands on it and I didn't do any other instructions in that area. What he did just look so natural that I was good with what he was doing. I made a few test images to get the light settings right, then made about a doze or so photos while moving a bit and having him look at me. Then it was just time to tear down my little set-up and get outta there while the reporter continued to talk to him.

A little later that same day I went to St. Mary's Catholic Cathedral. I was there to photograph Msgr. Racki who had just finished saying a noon mass. He asked if it was okay to wear the robes or should he go change? I figured that the robes would work great so I told him to keep them on and I began to get the light and beauty dish set up for this portrait that would be a full length image.

Msgr Racki

I looked around and noticed that there was some sunlight spilling into the sanctuary through a window right where I was going to shoot this priest. So I positioned him in that sunlight and placed the light  with the beauty dish to the subject's left. I made a couple of adjustments to allow for some ambient light to be used to light the background.

I also shot this one from a low angle. I did this because first of all, that he was a bit on the short side and that I wanted to give him some  decent space  in the image. I also wanted to frame him in the center of the arch but not have anything seem to be growing out of his head while he stood there.

It turned out to be pretty simple really. There are always little things that I might change to improve the photo if I were to do it over, but all in all this one seems to have worked out. I have come to really enjoy using a beauty dish. Maybe one day I will get the hang of it. Til then I will just have to make due with the knowledge I am gaining each time I use it.

Playmakers part I

Centennial High School soccer player, Ian Parker, leaping at Liberty Point.

There are stories behind most of the images that I make for The Chieftain some of them are even worth telling.  Here is one of them.

When I begin planning for the "Playmaker" series I do some research on the internet. I look for photos that others have made of the sports of the season. I google the sport and then look at as many photos as I can to get ideas. I may use the entire idea or just a part of it in my photo.

I found an idea for a soccer photo where the soccer player was stopping the ball with his chest. I thought I might get this to work but I added one of my favorite backgrounds, Liberty Point. Liberty Point is a high bluff that overlooks Lake Pueblo and Lake Pueblo State Park. There are some pretty amazing background possibilities there at dusk so I thought we'd give it a go.

Centennial High School senior, Ian Parker, was the athlete selected. I got in touch with him asked him to bring his varsity uniform, a ball and a buddy to toss the ball. Ian went one better, he brought to buddies, one to throw the ball and one to shag the throws that may get away from Ian.

Ian Paker stands on a rock near the edge of Liberty Point.

 As it turned out having the second helper was both a good and a not-so-good thing.
Ian was leaping into the air from a flat rock (in photo above) that was about 6 or 7 feet away from the edge of the bluff/cliff that dropped a couple hundred feet or so.

The ball got away from Ian a couple of times. The first time his buddy moved toward the ball was unable to get to it before it dropped the entire distance to the bottom. Of course when it stopped, it came to rest in a cactus. So Ian's friend and soccer teammate, headed down, what could loosely be referred to as stairs, down to the ball.

After the run-in with the cactus, the ball was starting to go flat (it was the only ball that Ian brought). So we rushed to get some more photos before the ball went totally flat.

Then it happened again. The ball was heading for the edge of the bluff when Ian's buddy went into over drive. He dove head first after the ball on the shale-covered ground to get the ball. He slid across the ground and the sharp-edged stones grabbing the ball and stopping inches away from going over the edge.

He had saved the ball but nearly lost himself. His buddies got a great laugh out of his efforts, but he climbed back up from the edge with the ball and new bleeding wound for his efforts. I told him that I didn't want him doing that again.

A ball could be replaced, but he couldn't.

The best play rehearsal assignment ever!

Actors rehearse a scene from 'It's a Wonderful Life'.

One of the many duties that constantly falls on  my shift is to do the photographs of play rehearsals for all of the local companies prior to the performance of their productions. I typically show up at the theaters where rehearsals are being held and shoot a photo of a scene in progress. I find that this makes far better photos than trying to pose the actors in an artificial scene.

  Recently I was given another assignment to shoot a play rehearsal. The address, however, was on 36th Lane. Now if you know Pueblo at all you know that this is in the rural part of the county. I figured that I would be going to someone's home and trying to get some sort of photo of a rehearsal in a living room or something. I was thinking that since it was an overcast day that I may just bring the actors outdoors and shoot the photo maybe in the front yard or something.

  There was something much better in store however.

  When I arrived at the address it was a farm. The house was near the front of the property with barns and out buildings in the back. I grabbed my gear and headed toward the house. I was met by a fella who was dressed for farm work who told me that the subjects of my assignment were waiting for me in the quonset hut/barn that was straight back from where I had parked.

  A few steps toward that building and I was met by first one of the three actors and then the other two stepped up to welcome me. "We are right over here." I was told and after coming around the corner what I saw can be best illustrated with a photo...

Rehearsing 'It's a Wonderful Life' in a barn!

As I am originally from Iowa I think it is very cool to have a play rehearsal going on right next to one of those HUGE International Harvester tractors! I almost didn't take this photo, but when I thought about it I asked them to pose one more time so that I could get this image. While Lifestyle editor, Scott Smith liked the barn photo, the writer wanted to use the photo you see at the top of this post. Oh well, at least YOU get to see it here.

Thank you Photo 101 students!

I want to thank everyone who took part in the Photo 101 class Saturday. It was great to spend time with a group of folks who are as interested in photography as I am and willing to engage in conversation to that end! I can't wait to do it again!

Stay tuned and I will let you know when we might get the chance to do another one. (I am thinking late spring might work.)

Til then please keep in touch and let me know the kinds of topics you might like me to cover.