High School Football Photography at Night

This is a part of photography that I have just tried and enjoyed. As a photographer one of the most asked questions I get is how do I get a good photograph of my son or daughter on the football team, band or drill team at night under the lights?
The answer is get close and use your 50mm 1.8 lens or a lens with at least a 2.8 F stop, for which they say, they have to stay in the stands and have the zoom 4.5 to 5.6 lens that came with the camera. The plain truth is that the shot they want to take is not going to happen with the camera equipment they have at a night game, so what should I tell them. I took some pretty good photographs from the front of the stands using a 70-200 F2.8 lens that is stabilized and got to go on the side lines to get closer shots, which is what the parents wanted. I wish I also had a 400mm 2.8 stabilized lens for even closer shots, but that lens is $8900 + new. I am going to try to rent one for a game soon to get those shots that I want. The simple truth is that you have to know what you are doing and have the proper equipment, which is very expensive for taking quality close-up shots at a night football game.

Senior Photographs

Senior Photographs are always a fun session. It is important to capture the images your subject has decided on. This is one type of session that you can not rush and probably will have a variety of different shots in studio and on location. Here is a link to some examples. http://www.dfwactors.com/SeniorPictures/

People and Sunset photography

This photograph was taken at a wedding recently as the sun was going down. I realized that there was a a chance to get a beautiful and powerful photograph of the newly weds, so how to do this. 1 - I metered for the sky and used manual to do this. 2 - now I just adjusted the output of the flash till I liked the results, not hard, but it takes a little practice.

Photographing prop aircraft

I photographed a B-17 & B-24 today at Love field here in Dallas. I wish I had more time for this today, but I also had to fly a flight with American Airlines. Jets are easier to photograph than prop aircraft because you can photograph a jet at a very high shutter speed to stop the action and camera shake you get when shooting telephoto.
I find to shoot a prop aircraft that 250th of a second is as fast as you can shoot and not stop the props, which is not a good look of an aircraft in flight. You need a stabilized telephoto lens to shoot prop aircraft and get sharp photographs, I used a Nikon 70-200 f2.8 VR lens to get these shots.

A RUG SHOOT

As a photographer I often shoot different subjects, yes even rugs. I had to shoot the rugs from above and then make them look the best possible with Photoshop. The photographs will be used by a major retailer for their internet site.

What is a person to do?

There is Facebook, LinkedIN, MySpace, Modelmayhem.com, so many internet sites to try to keep-up and of course, this blog, so much to do and so little time. Enough of my raving and back to work, marketing and networking are more important than ever these days.