Finding the good in the bad

"Pueblo South's Brody Lockett (30) and Tyrell Williams, far right, battle Mitchell's Davis Munoz for a loose ball in the first quarter of Pueblo South's 64-37 victory in the opening game of the Harrison Classic at Harrison High School in Colorado Springs, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008." JUSTIN EDMONDS, THE GAZETTE

Tonight was one of those nights where I had to earn my money. I could shoot sports all day, every day but there are plenty of times where it can be more challenging than it should. High school basketball is a perfect place to show that you are a better than average sports photographer.

For starters the games are played in the smallest, worst lit gyms (read: caves) imaginable. That means that shooting available light, except for the proud D3 owners, is out of the question. I'm a Canon guy and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the look of shooting on lights so I solved the "cave" problem by bringing a set of strobes to the game. I know that the paper is only going to run a couple of images from the game so some would say that bringing, setting up and tearing down lights is too much of a hassle. I, on the other hand see that as an opportunity, an opportunity to set myself apart from the next shooter. The image quality is better and the faces just "pop" that much more on lights.

The other important thing that I strive to achieve is clean backgrounds. Shooting in a high school gym makes this one a real challenge because since everything is so close to the action it can be difficult to separate the action from the background. I look for the cleanest backgrounds possible to aid me in making solid images. 

The above photo is a perfect example of how a clean background and strobes aid me in turning a rather rudimentary image into something that I feel confident running in tomorrow's paper with my byline underneath it. I get paid the big bucks (read: pennies) to find the good in a bad situation.

I'm shooting this same basketball tournament for the next two days and plan to try some different things so look for that soon.

-JCE

www.jcedmonds.com