11 Easy Ways to Improve Sports Photography

[Reyed Mia (Apprentice, DIU)]

11 Easy Ways to Improve Sports Photography

1. Learn the Sport

I mean really learn the sport. A big part of sports photography is anticipating action. You will (almost) never get that great shot of a diving shortstop spearing a line drive by simply reacting; you have to be just as ready for that play as the player is himself. You need to have a strong and instinctive understanding of a sport to really shoot it well. Shooting baseball? Watch the defense and see where they shift. They know the scouting report on the batter and are moving accordingly. Pay attention to whether the batter is left-handed or right-handed, same for the pitcher. Know the situation and plan accordingly. Football is the same thing, watch how the teams line up, know where they are on the field, and position yourself to take advantage of that. Basketball? Basketball can be a lot of fun because it's more confined and somewhat more predictable. Pay attention to the tendencies that players display throughout the game. Watch for people that seem to be emotional or play a certain way.

2. Back-Button Focus

If you bought your camera new, then chances are it came set up to initiate autofocus a certain way: by half-pressing the shutter button. This is all well and good, and many great photographers function just fine with the default setting, but here's a little secret: there's a better different way! There's a good chance you've heard of back-button focusing, most (I'm looking at you D750) higher-end cameras actually come with an "AF-ON" button on the back of the camera, right around where your thumb would normally rest. Even if you don't have that button, you should be able to go into your camera's custom settings and enable whatever button is back there as the button to initiate autofocus. I even go ahead and disable autofocus from my shutter release completely; I set the half-press to lock my exposure, but I autofocus with the back button.

3. Tell a Story

Quick, what separates Getty and (former) Sports Illustrated staff shooters from everyone else? Gear? Not really. Anyone can get gear, and you can get great AF and FPS on consumer level bodies these days. Access? Nope, a seasoned Getty shooter could kick your ass at Little League or the Super Bowl. Great athletes aren't what make great images. Two things separate the upper-echelon of sports shooters from the rest: practice and storytelling. I'll get to practice in my 10th point, but storytelling should never be undersold.

4. Stop Chimping (at the Wrong Time)

There isn't anything inherently wrong with chimping, but as with so many things in life, it's all about your timing. You never want chimp in the middle of the action, and you pretty much never want to chimp immediately following a stop in action (breaks in play are a great moment to find some of those story shots). You want to always be ready to catch the unexpected; even if you think you just got some amazing shot of a fantastic play, wait for the right moment to check. Don't let your own excitement possibly rob you of an even better shot than the one you're gawking at on the back of your camera.

Chimping is necessary at times, when covering an event for a publication, for instance. Many photographers are quickly reviewing their shot sequences and tagging potential keepers in-camera so that they're easy to find when they go to edit and caption later. It's an essential part of the workflow, but it should be done with careful discretion.

5. Be Critical

Your photo sucks; it really does. It doesn't matter that "it was such a great catch!" iI it's out of focus ("but only a little!"), or you can't see the ball ("it's there, I promise!"), or the face is obstructed ("who cares about faces?"), then chances are, it's not a great photo. The sooner you can accept that you have the innate ability to take really crappy photos, the sooner you can start to figure out why they're crappy and move on to taking really good photos.

6. It's (Almost) Always About the Face

This plays into the above, but faces are one of the most important things in a sports image. Faces personalize and humanize the image; they connect the viewer to the moment and draw them in. Yes, there are photos that capture such a powerful moment that they can get away with not having the face in them, but I guarantee you that the guys who shot those photos would have preferred a shot that showed the face.

7. Step Away From the Crowd

If you have the ability to move around a venue, use it. Find angles that no one else is shooting. My editor at one of my newspaper internships in college once told me: "Get high or get low; no one wants to see your point of view. Everyone knows what the world looks like from a few feet off the ground." Sports Illustrated's greatest photo of all time is that famous shot by Neil Leifer of Ali vs. Williams, the overhead angle telling the story of the fight better than anything ringside could. Don't underestimate what you can get when you combine a tight or wide angle with an extremely high or extremely low angle.

8. Don't Stop Once the Whistle Blows

Coaches tell players to keep going until they hear the whistle; well, you keep going until the whistle and then some. That's how you get moments of celebration and failure, coaches and players losing their minds, the moments that oftentimes define the game more than any individual play. Don't stop shooting once the catch is made, and don't ever assume that a whistle means the play is over. Cam Newton is a walking photo gallery after a touchdown; the most compelling shots of runners are almost always after they have crossed the finish line. Always keep your camera ready, and you will catch some of your most compelling photos.

9. Make Smart Gambles

You ever wonder how this shooter or that shooter managed to get the shot that they did? I mean, how could they possible know that the ball would be fumbled and returned 90 yards for a touchdown as the clock expired? The answer is that they didn't know, but they were willing to take a gamble. Now, just like in real betting, there are smart gambles and dumb gambles.

10. Shoot Tight, Crop Tighter

Tried and true wisdom from editors across the globe: Keep the action tight, crop even tighter later. Lose extraneous and distracting elements; draw the viewer into the action. Athletes are perceived as larger than life; let your photos play off that feeling. As with all rules, of course, this one is made to be broken, but it is a good rule of thumb and a good thing to have in mind when you're shooting and editing.

11. Shoot, Shoot, Then Shoot Some More
This holds true for all genres of photography and really anything in life you choose to pursue. You can't get better at something if you aren't doing it. Shoot a lot, get critiqued a lot, correct your mistakes, and shoot some more. Challenge yourself; look at images of photographers you admire, and go to a game with the mindset of trying to emulate something you like about their style. Find new ways to tell stories, and accept that you will probably fail a lot along the way.

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