The Picture Desk: Be Brave, use the light

I wanted to make a few more points about shooting the football game. This is the fifth blog in the series about last weeks game.

You don't have to follow the play, but you might want to follow the light.

Let me explain.

Everyone thinks you should keep up with the play and move down the field with the ball. Instead, if the light is really nice, like it was for the first quarter at this game... work the light and hope something happens.

This shot is a good example. I should have been much farther upfield and closer to the line of scrimmage, but the light was so nice shooting down field. I just needed something to happen.... the quarterback getting sacked and spun around, a receiver coming back for the ball, a defensive interception, or maybe even a fumble recovery where the player runs into the light, right where I'm waiting.

So I got lucky. The player was running away from me, but was tripped up and ended up on his head, and facing right into the light and my lens. I was well behind the play but the light was so nice.

It's great to get the quarterback in the light early in the game as well, because of the light you can get right inside the helmet, no dark shadows to worry about and the best colour of the day. The sharp light also makes the photo itself seem sharper.

These were all shot on the Sony Alpha A500 with the Sony 70-400G lens. I had the ISO set to 800 and the shutter speed was at 1/1600.