On the Sidelines

As a rule, every editor I've worked for HATES these types of photographs, so if you have dreams of being a newspaper photojournalist and don't want to spend quality time in your bosses office getting your butt chewed out, I advise you to not follow my example.

That said, when I can, and very judiciously, I like to show the motion that athletes are in while competeing in their sport. To do this, I use a slow shutter speed of 1/8th to 1/15th of a second focused on my subject while at the same time moving my camera at the same speed of the subject as I press the shutter botton on the camera. The effect is that the subject is in focus because it is moving at the relative same speed as my moving camera and the background is blurred.

The photograph shows in a still photograph the motion of the athlete. It takes some practice to get the timing down and rarely do I make these kinds of photographs on the first try, but with practice and repetition it's not a hard photograph to make with the right subject.

First, watch how your subect is moving and practice following that movement through your lens, then set your camera so that you are shooting at the mentioned 1/8th to a 1/15th of a second. If you're photographing in bright sunlight, a neutral density filter along with setting your camera to its lowest ASA setting will get you to the lower shutter speed.

Now try it for real making exposures. Experiment with slower and faster shutter speeds and different subjects moving in different ways until you find what works for you. In these days of digital there is no film to waste, so make a lot of photographs and check the backscreen of your camera for proper exposure and to see if you are getting the effect you want. Yes, I do that also.

Have fun with it and make a photograph that is different and exciting...Well, that's what I do the day before I end up in a bosses office trying to explain myself.....

See ya on the sidelines,

Peter

The only thing remarkable about the two photos you see here is that they're both in focus. And I use an autofocus, so that's not saying much.

One ran on the cover of our Wauwatosa paper and one ran as the lead photo on the sports section of the same paper. The photos were made on Friday, May 15, 2009, shortly after the start of a 6:30 p.m. soccer game in Wauwatosa and at the end of the longest and saddest day of my 18-year career.

The economy is in the tank, newsrooms across the country have been laying people off and couple of months ago we at CNI were told to expect layoffs during 2009, and most of us were bracing ourselves, but nothing could ever prepare us for that was to happen.

Shortly after 9 a.m. on the day these photos were made, it was announced at a company meeting that we at CNI would be laying off 19 newsroom employees effective immediately the same day. What followed was heart breaking for all involved and will stay with me for the rest of my life to one extent or another.

I've had bad days during my career as a photojournalist and in 2001 was laid off myself, but nothing has ever come, and I hope never does, close to That Friday. As the announcement was being made, the resident newsroom wise-cracking tough guy - that's me, by the way - was the first to get emotional.

What followed was a numbing couple hours of goodbyes, helping co-workers clean out desks, and, yes, lots of hugs and tears. I'm an emotional guy - both good and bad - but that day took the cake. From young cubs I'd taken under my wing to vets older then me, it seemed the whole newsroom was crying at once - and we probably were. By the way, the sleeves on a leather jacket really don't work as an improvised tissue very well.

As the dust was settling that day, those of us still with jobs still had eight newspapers to put out for May 21 and we tried the best we could to bury what we were going through and attempt to concentrate on the job at hand.

By noon That Friday I had a new job description. I was to be, and am, responsible for all photographic coverage for our Web sites and papers south of I-94. My co-worker C.T. Kruger is responsible for everything north of I-94.

One of the first things I did That Friday that I did while not on autopilot was to request that in addition to my new job description that I remain the primary photographer responsible for sports coverage for our papers and Web sites. I volunteered for extra work because I believe in the people I cover. You, the prep athletes. If we at CNI don't cover, you who will?

Preps is all the sports we cover and as I have been accused of I'm self absorbed and think I'm good at that I do and will do a better job at it then anyone. We're changing at CNI, but if I have anything to say about it - and to a small extent I do - photographic sports coverage of high school athletics will continue to be a priority for us. We plan to update our Web sites within 24 hours of a sporting event that we cover photographically, so look at the web first before the paper comes out on Thursdays.

As I've been thinking of this column I've thought of all the really great former co-workers I wanted to mention here by name, but on reflection on this rainy Wednesday afternoon I don't think I will as much as I want to.

Most were behind-the-scenes folks why rarely had a byline. Great folks who led from the front-fighting for all of us at CNI, really patient people who helped old dogs learn new tricks, technology wizards who always made the best of what they had, and young cubs with more talent then I'll ever have. You folks know who you are. I respect and love you all.

I don't know for sure how long I was at the office That Friday, I think it was six hours, but I'm not sure. Through all the events of That Friday, the only thing I really wanted to do was cover the Wauwatosa East vs. Wauwatosa West girls soccer game I was scheduled to cover that day.

I couldn't make a difference the way I wanted to in the office that day, but I did know that I could make a difference on the sidelines with a camera covering a soccer game.

See ya on the sidelines,

Peter

This past week I had an assignment to make a portrait of an athlete for a story one of our sports reporters is doing. I really don't like these jobs because they involve making an interesting photograph of someone to illustrate a story about a very active person -- the best baseball player of the year is an annual example -- but in this case my subject was in injured athlete.

The idea is that my photograph will somehow match the reporters story in tone and flavor, so a very happy looking subject in a photograph that will run with a story about a young lady who suffered a concussion and had her athletic career cut short would make no sense. Thus I have to make a moody/somber looking portrait of my subject which usually involves deep shadows and a somber/serious facial expression. 

In this case the facial expression is the easy part, I just coach the subject not to smile. The harder part is making a moody looking photo when I had to meet the subject outdoors at 1:30 in the afternoon on a cloudless, sunny day. Moody sunlight happens around 7:30 p.m. this time of year.

"Oh boy, what kind of trick can I do to pull this one off, Peter?" I'm thinking on my feet as the subject and myself walk to a soccer goal, the setting of the photo. Bright, straight overhead, flat, sunlight. Yuck.

The solution was to use an eight stop neutral density filter over my lens to darken the noon-time sun to a manageable level, which allowed me to use a flash held off the side of the camera to both overpower the light of the sun and, at the same time, create more pleasing shadows. A neutral density filter is nothing more then a dark chunk of glass the screws onto the front of my lens and doesn't do anything other than darken the overall photograph.

The darkest one I have is an eight stop filter, which, if my math and physics are correct, darkens the photograph eight times darker then the actual brightness level. Think of the filter as sun glasses for the lens or a welding mask shield. The eight stop ND filter is really dark. With the ND filter on the lens, the noon time glare looks like night through the lens and the sun to some may look more like the moon. Then it was just a matter of setting my flash to expose the subject close to the camera properly. The result is a photograph that looks, I hope, moody and more fitting to the story.

See ya on the sidelines,

Peter

I've read that photojournalists are witnesses to history, but I disagree. We are all witnesses to history, I just get paid to photograph it as it happens. 

This past week history was made in the field house of West Allis Central High School as Wauwatosa East's Hannah Weinberg-Kinsey cleared 5 feet 5 inches in the high jump event of her team's Greater Metro Conference track and field meet, breaking the old conference record of 5 feet 4 inches.

It was my second day in the Central field house after covering the boys GMC meet the day before and I was there to cover six schools, one of which was Tosa East.

Let me back up for a second and tell you my thoughts on covering track and field. I love to photograph track meets - period. There is just so much going on and so many different opportunities to make photos it's impossible to get bored, the access is great, and I don't have to worry about a sliced golf ball hitting me in the head.

That said, indoor track is a challenge from a technical point of view. The light, or lack there of, pushes my cameras ability to to both record the action and stop what ever motion there is to the stops. It's dark and people are moving fast, two things that never work together to make a good photo. 3200ASA f/2.8 at a 1/320th of a second dark. That's when the light is reflecting off faces, not the shadows.

To maximize my chances of making photos I tend to concentrate on the high jump and pole vault field events while covering indoor track. In the pole vault event the athletes are 9 feet closer to the lights and because of that I can raise my shutter speed to 1/500th of a second, thus upping my chances of stopping and motion. In the high jump event the competitors go over the bar with their faces facing right at the lights - lending me a hand as the light reflects off any exposed skin, again making my job easier.

Thus, after photographing a couple pole vaulters, I hung out at the high jump pit right next to the finish line for the running events. Depending on what was going on I had my choice of two photographs, running and or hurdles or the high jump.

I noticed Hannah soon after getting to my hangout at the finish line/high jump pit and wanted to photograph her because she went to school at one of the schools I was to cover at the meet. But every time I thought I'd get my chance, she would defer to the next higher bar height. As time went on and Hannah kept deferring to the next higher bar height and now I really wanted to photograph her. If you defer to a higher bar height you are ether good or stupid - and I was betting she was good.

When I made this photograph, I had no idea it was a record-breaking jump, just that I needed an athlete from East and that Hannah was good. That filled the bill for me at the time. It was only after her jump and talking with her coach did I learn of the record being broken.  I already knew the photograph was sharp and now I had a shot worthy of the sports section cover that I was proud to put my name under.

Did luck play a part in my capturing Hannah's jump? You bet it did. There is just no way one person can be everywhere and know all that is happening at a track meet. Knowing what to look for and how to maximize what little light there is helped, but Lady Luck was with me for capturing Hannah's record-breaking jump.

See ya on the sidelines,

Peter 

Just about any sports photo will look better the lower you, as the photographer, are to the ground. It's all about perspective. Any vertical movement by an athlete will be accentuated the lower your camera is to the ground. A good sprinter's feet will both be off the ground at the same time during his stride, but from eye height that's just not visible. The sprinter's feet are only a couple of inches off the running deck and from eye level that's just not readily visible, but with the camera on the ground/floor that little two inches of flight looks much more pronounced. Add in a determined and straining game face and it's makes for a dramatic photograph.

The same low perspective works equally well for any sport where both of the competitors feet leave the ground. Yes, long jumpers catch a lot of air, but from floor level it's even more dramatic.

I don't make these photographs with a remote camera like I use for basketball. These are made lying belly on the floor/ground looking through the viewfinder to, pardon the pun with these photos, track the athlete through the viewfinder using the longest lens I can get away with.

Yes, my clothes are constantly trashed and dirty, that black rubber stuff they make running tracks from never really comes out in the wash. Indoors that's most likely a 70-200 zoom at 200mm, outdoors it's almost always a 400mm lens and most times I add a 1.4X extender to that. 

So if you see me laying down on the job I'm not taking a nap, I get paid to get dirty.

See ya on the sidelines,

Peter 

I hate rules and break them every chance I get. One of the things young photographers learn when photographing outside is to always have the sun to their backs and on the front of their subjects. Not a bad rule, but again, I hate rules.

This past week I was covering a girls soccer game late in the day between Menomonee Falls and Whitnall. I started to photograph on the west side of the field with the sun to my back and directly on the players. It was what photographers call "nice light". Directional and golden-reddish sunlight that happens as sunset nears on a clear - and in this case - cold, day. I made photos of the game for a while until I was sure I had something that I was happy with and then walked to the other side of the field looking into the setting sun.

With a 50-foot walk, the same field looked different. Sun shown through the girls' hair and rim lit them with almost a halo around their shoulders. Two photos made during the second half of the same game, but looking different. Sometimes breaking the rules is fun.

This was taken front lit with the sun to my back.

This shot was back lit, looking into the sun.

See ya on the side lines,

Peter

Basketball season is over and I’ve had a few days to look back on the photos I made in the last couple of months and it occurred to me that a couple of people have asked about the low-angle photos that have appeared in our papers.

It’s always a challenge to find a new angle to and different perspective, and this is just one more option I’ve come up with (actually, I stole the idea from a Sports Illustrated photographer) to provide a different look at a basketball game.

No, I don’t lay on the floor and look through the camera viewfinder waiting for a break away slam-dunk to gat these photos. I tape a piece of plastic (a colleague uses two burned out AA batteries for the same effect) under the bottom edge of an extra camera with a wide angle lens. I use a 16-35mm zoom, so that when the camera sits on the floor it points up at a 45 degree angle. Then I pre-focus the camera where I think the action while occur under the basket and set the camera's exposure manually.

Without moving my “floor camera," I sit next to it with another camera shooting the game the way I always do with a 70-200mm zoom and when there’s a breakaway or what I hope will be a large group of players leaping for the basket, all I have to do is reach down and press the shutter button on the camera sitting on the floor next to me….and hope for the best.

"Hope" is the key word as these are not high percentage pictures and I’m lucky to get one good photo per game, but it’s a different perspective showing picture that gives me another option at a story telling photo.

See ya on the sidelines,

Peter

Welcome to On the Sidelines, my blog. I’m one of six full time general assignment staff photojournalists at CNI Newspapers. All six of us are general assignment, so sports is by no means all I cover for our papers and web sites, but because I’ve gotten a reputation as being good at sports photojournalism, I really love what I do, and I can tolerate the hours, sports is a hefty portion of what I cover.

A little bit about me. I’m 40 years old and live on the east side of Wauwatosa, a life long metro Milwaukee resident raised on Milwaukee’s blue collar south side and earning a degree from Milwaukee Area Technical College in photography in 1989. I am a past president of the Wisconsin News Photographers Association.

I just passed the 19-year mark as a photojournalist, having been hired for my first job out of college in January of 1990. I still remember interviewing for that job and being told that “you need to work on your sports” after the chief photographer at that paper looked at my portfolio. I honestly can’t say I overtly took his advice, but looking back almost 20 years I have made progress.

Since 1990 I’ve worked at two small daily papers in southeast Wisconsin and have been at CNI since 2001. Besides the staff positions along the way I’ve been a contract freelancer for USA Today, the Associated Press, and NCAA to name a few. I’ve covered the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Bucks, and the Milwaukee Brewers. The Ice Bowl-II in Green Bay, the last game at County Stadium for the Packers, the last Milwaukee Brewers game in County Stadium, the first game in Miller Park, and the All Star Game when it was in Milwaukee.

I guess that sounds cool to have covered those professional games and it was, but truth be told I much prefer to cover high school athletics to the pros. There’s a level of passion in high school athletics that I’ve never felt covering pro sports and where else but high school athletics can I cover soccer, swimming, and track and field (some of my favorite sports to cover) as much as I do?

Where this blog goes I really don’t know. I have ideas on topics to write about, but I want this to be a two way street as well as my ramblings. If you have questions about sports photography, newspapers, how I made a particular photo, or whatever please email me and I promise to get back to you or maybe turn your question into a blog entry.

A couple questions I seem to be asked regularly:

Q. Is this your real job?
A. Yes, it’s a real job. I work a 40-hour week Tuesday through Saturday. Sunday I give to my wife, Monday I give to myself.

Q. What kind of cameras do you use?
A. I use Canon digital cameras. A 1D and a 1D Mark-II with lenses ranging from a 15mm fisheye to a 400mm telephoto.

Q. What’s your favorite sport to photograph?
A. All of ‘em, but golf.

Q. What’s your favorite photo you’ve taken?
A. That’s a really hard one. If you really try hard and nail me down I guess I do have a favorite, but it’s not a sports photograph. In a future blog I may well share that photograph.

Q. Do you ever get tired of your job?
A. Physically yes, each year a little bit more. During state tournament times 12 to 18 hour days are the norm for me, throw in long drives and working outside and I get a bit tired, but as my Grandfather used to say it’s a “good tired.” Mentally never. I can’t wait to get out of bed most days and go to work and make photos. I’ve wanted to be a news photographer since I was 10 years old and each day this job is like living a dream.

See ya on the sidelines
Peter