Watch the background

I shoot a lot of Amateur and Junior football for the local paper. One of the considerations I have to take into account for where I shoot from isn't the position of the sun or where the best action is going to be, its the backgrounds. A lot of football is played on local parks within housing schemes so bad backgrounds are a constant problem.

What makes a difference to a shot is a nice clean background, unlike these -

Cars, buildings or just people who happen to be standing in the wrong place.

The next couple of pictures are an example of the difference a clean background makes. The same image with the distracting background removed (NB this is for illustrative purposes only).Note the difference.

Some other images from the last two weekends -

103 years and counting

These are images I shot on a man, Thomas Miller, who had just turned 103 years old. A remarkable person who despite his age still manages to live at home on his own. Add his age to the fact that he is going blind and it makes him even more remarkable.
The photos also marked another milestone, abeit less important, as it was the first time I have felt confident enough to use off camera flash on a image I was shooting for the papers (or any other image I have taken outside the family pics). Although the results are not great I see it as a starting point and plan to practice more to improve and take better images.

These were taken with one strobe gelled with an orange filter (1/4) to give the images more warmth. I also turned down the exposure to -1 on what the ambient was reading. I feel an addition strobe would have helped balance the image better but onwards and upwards.

Rugby woo hoo

I got the chance to shoot some rugby today (a portion of the second half). I have been looking forward to having an opportunity since it has been months since I last ventured near a rugby pitch due to the fact that I spend most Saturday afternoons shooting football for the paper. I was a bit rusty but was pleased with the performance of the 40D. So here are some images from Perthshire v Kirkcaldy plus some football shot over the last two weekends.

Football from the last 8 days

Images taken for press use in the last 8 days. Starting to see better results with the 40D I recently bought. These are from Amateur and Junior matches which I usually cover on Saturdays (some from Wednesday). With the season began the action is mixed with an array of team images, manager shots, signings etc. Good to be busy.

News images - hoping to improve

News images are not something I do alot of. The local paper tends to use me for sports images because they know I will come back with a half decent image. So when I do get the chance its good to be able to to something different. Now this is where the problem kicks in - for some reason I always have a sense of nerves when it comes to producing news images. I know I can take a reasonable image but never seem to be able to convince myself of that fact when I am actually setting the shot up and taking the image. Hopefully that will improve with experience.

Anyway here are images I took last week. The first few are from local fetes, a sixtieth wedding anniversary, a charity golf tournament, a fashion show and lastly a meet the St Johnstone manager Derek McInnes session.

Some football images from last 7 days