“The key to any good sports story is identifying the defining moment.” Dan Jenkins… sports author. In point of fact, there are many defining moments and each image you capture should be your attempt to catch a defining moment and convey a part of the story. Catching the moment(s) is more than just squeezing the shutter release and ripping off 10 shots a second, because your camera can, while you hope for the best. If luck was all you needed, then we all would take shots as good as Rhona Wise, or Mark Terrill, or Rich Clarkson, or Dave Black . . . and we all do not. So, there must be, and is, more to catching the moment.
You catch the moment with prep before the game so you know the players, a bit of their tendencies, the teams, the rivalries, who is emotional, who is chippy, who is cool, who is demonstrative. You catch the moment by “waiting for it” – you don’t have to shoot all the action all the time; pre-visualize a shot you want and wait for it. It will happen.
You catch the moment by staying to shoot after the competition is over:
or after it passes you by:
You catch the moment by shooting before they confront each other:
Sometimes the moment escapes the naked eye, but not your lens:
Sometimes the moment is frozen in mid-air:
Sometimes the moment is the agony of defeat:
Or the thrill of victory:
Or the look after the ball leaves the view, like this month’s cover shot, and:
Or just as the shot or the ball is about to leave the field of vision:
Or just as the ball enters the field of vision:
Make an image, don’t take a photograph; plan your shot in your mind’s eye, then execute.
Next month, do :: or :: diso is all soccer, soccer, soccer.
