Essay #57: Play ball!

I've written before about my enjoyment of live sports. My favorite is baseball. I don't have any interest in televised baseball, but I love going to games.

Baseball can be tricky to photograph. There's a lot of waiting between short flurries of action, and you never really know where the ball is going to end up so it's hard to set up a shot ahead of time. If it's a brilliantly sunny day, the shadows preclude certain angles.

And yet, I'm a sucker for it. Especially those daring moments of stealing bases or racing for home even as the ball streaks toward the catcher's mitt. It's all about patience, persistence, and strategic timing--much like photography.

Essay #49: On Wisconsin

Last weekend the Badgers trounced the Michigan Wolverines, and I had the pleasure of seeing it first-hand.

Live sporting events are so much more engaging than televised ones: the crowd, the cold, narrow bleachers, the announcers, the concessions, the big-screen marriage proposals. Plus, it allows for sports photography, the genre that first hooked me on this hobby. I first fell in love with a camera's power to capture motion and energy, freezing a moment in time, while on the sidelines of a college football game taking pictures for the student newspaper. It's amazing how a still image can contain so much motion.

Freestyle: Football

Today was the homecoming football game at my alma mater. Here are a few game-time images.

Essay #12: Action

 

Having the time to amble about town has led me to contemplate the physics of walking. Perambulation is a simple skill, one of the first a young child learns. But it's also complex: a controlled fall harnessed for propulsion. In the moment weight shifts from one foot to the other, the strider tumbles from balance to descent. It doesn't feel like a fall becuase the next foot lands on the ground a moment later, restoring balance--unless there's an unexpected plummet off a curb or step. 

Life is a lot like walking. A series of spills that we use to move forward, catching ourselves, and propelling into the next step. Of course, it helps to be walking on solid ground.

Specs: 14mm 1/30 f/9.0 ISO 100