The art and rules used in sports photography

Owens' Paige Wright drives to the basket in front of Mercyhurst's Aeriyelle Perrin during the Owens Express Tip Off Classic at Owens Community College. (PHO245   photos by Parth Pitroda)

   Sports photography is an art not everyone can do. It requires lot of patience and practice. When covering sports, you need to await the right moment to fire the camera, otherwise a live action shot could be missed. It is also important to know the rules and scoring method of the sport you are photographing, so you can catch the busy most crucial moments in that particular sport.     

   My experience photographing sports is nominal. Although there is a lot that can be learned in sports photography I found no interest in it. The highest useable ISO was 1600 which limited shutter speed to a maximum of 1/250sec. For this reason sports is harder than I expected it to be. There are many challenges which I faced, one of which includes focusing the camera on a fast moving subject.  Another is finding an interesting yet appropriate vantage point like capturing the coaches at a unique angle and getting a decent feature fan shot which still showed all the important content.  Nothing was enjoyable in this assignment because, I was not familiar with it. Overall, I feel sports photography is horrifying but it was a wonderful learning experience.

Fans watch the game.

Owens Women's Basketball Coach, Michael Llanas (10th year). No. 9 Owens Community College Express Owens Express Tip Off Classic Women's Basketball. 

  

The unique qualities of portrait photography and my experiences with it as a photojournalist

   Aj Coulson, auto tech, Sylvania OH, 21, hands out tools to all the automotive and

   cat students in the transportation technologies because classes need tools to work on

   equipment in the Transportation Technology Building at Owens Community College.

    

    Portrait photography, defined by the technique required and type of environment used, is best when you are in control of the light that is falling on your subject. It is important to be relatively quick and efficient when shooting portraits. People tend to lose patience if you take your time adjusting your camera controls. A good portrait photographer will get his light equipment, camera gear, set up well before it is time to photograph the subject.

   Most people think of portrait photography as a studio type atmosphere. The photographer would shoot indoors and use external lighting to illuminate the person being photographed. Backgrounds of different styles are used by the photographer for aesthetic appeal. Studio photographers have the public come to them to be photographed.

   Photojournalists also shoot portraits along with their news photography. Unlike portraits taken in the studio, a photojournalist shoots environmental portraiture. The people stay in their natural habitat while being photographed. The environment is used as a prop that relates to the person. Environmental portraits can be shot candid as well as posed as opposed to studio pictures which are generally posed.

Aj Coulson, photos by Parth Pitroda

   I found shooting portraits quite interesting and fun, however it was different than expected. My perception of portraiture was to go find someone interesting and just photograph them. Instead, I found myself constantly moving to get the correct lighting to fall on my subject. Once that was achieved, I could then take the shot. Capturing portraits was definitely harder than I expected. Photographing people is getting easier for me but there are a few spots in which I could improve. For example, the composition of the head shot was most challenging to me. Overall, I feel photographing portraits is fun and exhilarating.