P Alesse
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 p.1 #2 · Need Help: Soccer T&I | |
First from the ethical/professional/legal standpoint, if you are planning on charging them or even if you are doing it gratis, I'd respectfully decline if you haven't done the following in advance...
...Check with the contracted T&I photographer before doing anything. That T&I photographer who usually will pay a percentage back to the league has to be given every opportunity to makeup that team's shot. If he declines to do a makeup and gives you his blessing, go for it. I know this sounds silly, but as soon as you agree to do this, you'll be a professional like everyone else that does this for pay and there needs to be professional courtesy among photographers.
Case in point... this weekend... a parent from an opposing football team saw that we were doing photo makeups at the field in between games on Sunday after having shot most of the league on Saturday. Our studio strobes were setup outside fieldside and she approached me wanting to know if she could step in and have her son photographed by us because he missed his photo day last week. Since we were NOT the contracted photographer of her hometown league, I had to respectfully decline and explained why. She was disappointed but, understood. Now since we were doing action as well on Sunday, I did tell her that I'd shoot her son in action. Despite being on the opposing team, the team was on the turf of the league for whom we were contracted for both action and T&I. There is a lot more leeway with action when it comes to contracts, so I was able to shoot him in action and I might, just might have gotten a couple of nice tight sportrait shots in there too (wink, wink).
So, now with that out of the way, we can talk about mechanics of the shoot...
Individuals... if shooting with on camera flash (and you should), you'll want to find a nice balance between ambient and flash so that the hot spots on the hair and face are minimal and the flash fills in the shadows nicely. Since it's soccer, we don't have to deal with hats, so that's a good thing. Face your subject away from the sun so you are shooting about 3/4 backlit. This will vary too depending on time of day. Typically, I like to shoot at 200 mm at f/5.6 for individuals because it absolutely destroys the background, but in order to pull that off, you need an off camera light setup. With your incoming lens, I'd shoot at 70mm at f/8 against a clean background. This will give you more wiggle room for focusing since its your first time out. Plus the OCF will reach just fine. As for poses, keep it simple. As a suggestion... 3/4 angle, ball on hip on one hand, other hand on hip. Be midful of the small details... soccer club logo showing, no hair in face, laces tucked in...etc. There are other poses, but I think this is the simplest for someone that is new. Plus, since you are shooting at f/8 and at a minimum focal length, a mid hip compostion will allow you to shoot tighter and help blur out the BG a bit.
For teams... lots of ways to go, but stay with the conventional. Arrange them by height from tall to short and try to work with odd numbers in your rows as much as possible. Team shots are about uniformity and symmetry in my opinion. Usually, the taller kids are in the back row with the shorter ones in front and you employ a 213 arrangement. So lets say that you have a team of 14 players. The tallest kid, we'll call #1 is your first kid to be placed into the shot and I always tell that kid that he's my keyman because everything in that row is "keyed" off of him. He cannot move. As long as he keeps his footing stable in the shot, the kids that line up in that row can squirm because the keyman keeps the line of symmetry stable. Okay, now we put in #2 tallest and #3 tallest. They are going to flank #1 on either side, hence the "213" arrangement. 4 and 5 flank 2 and 3 respectfully. Don't worry about their angle or poses yet. You'll worry about that later. Just get them in line as best as possible and remind your keyman that he cannot move. That's your midpoint. Now put 6 and 7 tallest in the shot flanking 4 and 5. That finishes that row. #8 tallest now becomes keyman in the bottom row and they are going to kneel. I like both knees down because I like symmetry and it looks more symmetrical to me with both knees down rather than one knee up. 8 is midline key. 9 and 10 flank, 11 and 12 flank, 13 and 14 flank. Done.
Now we clean up and tighten up. I like arms behind the back, but you can keep them at their sides if you want. I don't like hands cupped in front because it looks like they all have to pee. Normally, based on lenses and optics, we'd want to curve the lines in a bit, but honestly, that can take a lot of time and can be a headache to get it just right. Keep the kids in line shoulder to shoulder and if they need to tighten up and eliminate gaps, do so with one major warning... keymen #1 and #8 never move. They must tighten to the midlines and they are it!
The coaches depending on their height can take a knee (outside knee) just behind the shoulder of players 6 and 7 at either end. The other option is standing behind between gaps 6-4 and 5-7 or 4-2 and 3-5. With 10 yr olds, this is just about the max age where you can get away with two rows and still get a nice crop at any size. Larger teams, kids, ages will require a third row of sitters. I just finished a football team of 90 with a paltry set of bleachers no bigger than my sofa, so it can get hairy with large numbers.
Also, this is just a general guideline. Three coaches, an even number of kids, etc. will necessitate you getting creative with arrangements. But the rule of thumb will always be the same... symmetry and conformity. Try to get everyone doing the same thing at the same time. After taking the time to get symmetry, be mindful of your horizon at all times. Your lines will look skewed in your photograph if you are not mindful of both planes of the camera body... the coronal plane and the transverse plane. The coronal is the rotation of the camera like the hands on the clock that most people talk about when they talk about even horizon. Often overlooked though is rotation of your camera along the transverse plane. This is shifting your camera left side closer to subject than right side or vice versa. Picture the face of the clock parallel to earth and your camera rotating like the hands on that clock... that's transverse. And in case you're interested, there is a third plane called the saggital plane which has less bearing on the shot and its horizon than coronal and transverse. Bottom line... sit or kneel dead balls on to the midline of your team and keep your camera's planes also dead balls on.
Take plenty of shots. I take at least 10 with little kids because they have short attention spans and they blink a lot with strobes. With 10 shots, if I have to clone a set of open eyes every now and then, I can live with that.
I wish I had more shots to show, but could only find one of baseball. This had to be done under some undesirable conditions. A courtyard background is used because it's the only off-limit area for parents in the Little League complex and we don't want them sniping over our shoulder. The kids had to hold their state championship banner. This can also be a challenge and you have to do a reverse arrangement with the kids. The taller kids are actually in front in the 213 arrangement. This will allow their heads to be seen. Shorter kids in front would have faces covered by banner or up to their necks. Also, worth mentioning in this arrangment though is the relevent age group. These are 11-12 yr old boys and once they hit this age, you'll find much more disparity in heights (puberty). With more disparity in height, you might want to consider a reverse arrangment. The heads will lie tighter in the photograph and it looks cleaner IMO. Little kids 8 and under all tend to be around the same height and you don't have to be as vigilant in the arrangement.
This is just my take on how I do it. You'll get lots of valuable opinions here from those that do it all year round... lee woolery, james broome, to name a couple.
Anyhow, here is team shot. Hope this all helped.
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