Shooting without a clue - my first Rugby bout.

  Over the past year, I have donated a couple of photo shoot coupons to auctions for various fund raisers but no one has cashed one in yet, until last weekend. The guy who won the coupon coaches mens' rugby for UCSD. He said he didn't need any pics of himself but wanted to know if he could use the coupon to have me come out and shoot one of his team's bouts. I figured that it would be something totally new for me, so I said sure.

  When it comes to shooting circus arts, I have a lot of experience as a performer and a teacher that gives me a good idea of when and what to shoot. I shot a couple of soccer games, but I played soccer for years back in high school, so again, I have an understanding of the flow of the game. Rugby is another matter entirely, I have never played rugby in my life, never watched a game, really only knew it existed and some friends of mine do it. I was kind of worried because I had no idea really what the important parts of the game were and what to anticipate.

    I asked my friend to give me a quick primer, he said that probably I could get some good shots when the ball went out of bounds. Apparently the as they throw the ball back in, each team picks one guy to pretty much grab by the shorts and wedgie into the air to try and get the ball over the head of everyone else. After dispensing this nugget of advice he had to go coach and I was left to see what would happen. But he was right, frequent severe wedgies seem to be an integral part of the rugby experience.

   Having watched and shot one game now, I am still no closer to actually understanding the game. It pretty much looked like an adult version of the game called "tackle the guy with the ball," that we used to play when I was a kid. I am sure the safety police have since outlawed that game, but basically someone tossed the ball into the crowd, someone was dumb enough to grab it and was instantly smashed by everyone else. That's pretty much my impression of the flow of rugby. Apparently instead of avoiding tackles, the guy with the ball is supposed to run into the other team and try to push through them, while his team is supposed to basically push him through them. Or in some cases, throw them through the other team.

  I missed a lot of shots, because there aren't down or anything, so the game is mostly continuous. Except there seems to be a penalty of some sort every two seconds. Never really had any idea what they were or who it was even against. There were lots of these things that I think are called scrums, where basically everyone hugs and does a sort of strange dance around the ball.

 
  Anyway, I went to the game, threw the 70-200mm onto Excalibur, slapped the combo onto a monopod and did what I could. Set up for cloudy white balance (it was cloudy). One thing I have learned is that auto WB works pretty well, but fixed WB makes for easier post processing of large groups of shots. I shoot raw so I can adjust the WB later to whatever I need later, but if they are all the same I can batch process if I need to. In this case I really didn't. I let the ISO roam in auto, set the shutter speed to 1/500 and the aperture to f8 because it was pretty bright. I found that with the dayglo uniforms I had to dial in a -1EV compensation to keep them from blowing out. 9 point AF-C tracked pretty well with a normal focus shift delay. Once I was dialed in I made sure to keep both eyes open, my finger on the back button focus, and followed the ball as best I could.

    Overall, despite not having a clue what was going on and not getting all the shots I could, I am happy with how it turned out for a first try, and my friend loved them, so overall it was a success. And for the record, no pads. These guys are much tougher than those american "football" players. 

  As always, you can see the full gallery on my website.  I have a busy weekend full of shooting coming up, so hopefully will have more updates next week, then it's back to Anza Borrego for another round of yoga/acro shoots, this time with 4WD!

Taking Stock....

   If you don't know me, I guess I should give you fair warning, as my birthday approaches each year- coincidentally close enough to the anniversary of starting this blog for government work- I tend to draw inwards and get introspective. That means you, the faithful reader, are about to get a little macro shot of where I think I am at right now.

  I'll start off with the newest development in my progression, I just got accepted as a contributor for istockphoto.com. Reviews are mixed on how competitive this actually is and how rigorous the review process is for entry, all I can say is that I tried several times in the past and was not approved. This time around, my initial profile submission was approved and so far I am 10/11 individual images approved. You can see my profile here. The one image that got rejected taught me something. It was a skyline image of San Diego, rejected for potential copyright issues. Didn't understand it until I really went back and looked at the image and realized there were corporate logos visible on some of the buildings if I zoomed in to around 250% or so. I removed those and resubmitted, still waiting on the jury on the revision, but what I learned is how much more attention to detail I need to pay to images I work up for stock. Now I just have to wait for the royalty checks to start rolling in, right? Not really. I am sure some people make a living of stock photo sales, but at this point I would be happy for a single sale. Not looking for major income from it, I am just taking the acceptance after rejections in the past to mean my work is improving. 

   Improvement is the theme for the past year. I may not be great yet, but I am getting better each time I hit the shutter and learning something from each shoot. I am on a time line, but unless something really unexpected happens in the near term, I have at least four years and change until I retire and will be looking to reply on photography as a full time second career. I think if I keep it up I can get from here to there. I am on a good glide slope. I am still trying to find a niche that I enjoy shooting and that will be commercially viable. I love shooting live events, shows and festivals and performers. It's awesome and it provides me a way to give back to a community that has quite literally turned my life around and made me who I am today. No matter where go from here I intend to keep shooting friends on stage. But it isn't a market I really expect to make income from. 

  My live show shots are getting better. I have done a few setup shoots and each one has gotten better, despite some minor setbacks like getting stuck in the desert and stabbed by a lot of cactus. I am starting to feel like I am able to approach what I see in my head and translate it into an image. I also feel like I am starting to get into a workflow that works for me. 

  I am still exploring where I want to go. I did some things I didn't like doing, McSportraits is definitely out as a career path.  I did an engagement shoot this past year. I hoped to follow that up with a wedding shoot, but my schedule didn't allow it. I was able to shoot the bride getting ready, but when she got into a limo to head to the wedding, I had to head to the airport to catch a flight. I was on the hook to fill in for a wedding photographer who came down sick at the last minute, but the bride for some reason or other never closed the communication loop. I hope she found some one to take awesome pics for her wedding, but for me it just means I was "always the bridesmaid, never the bride." I think weddings may be a decent fit for me, I am good at going with the flow of an event and capturing the feel, and I like shooting to capture the emotion of an event. I was hoping to have a couple of weddings under my belt by now at least as a second shooter, but that hasn't manifested yet. Will have to see what the next year brings. 

  Another avenue I want to try is non conventional senior portraits. I have learned this year that I definitely do not want to do the cattle call portrait scene, whether it's seniors or a soccer team. That isn't a creative challenge and isn't really something I enjoy, as I learned shooting Mcsportraits in the past year. I think I would like trying to work with individuals seniors, figure out what makes them special and unique, trying to capture that and give them their own unique images. My ships' schedule this year doesn't support me being around during the time I would really have to focus on that market, so it's something I need to set up for in advance and try to knock my way into next year. 

  So what else is coming in the next year? Can't say I know for sure, but here is what is in the works. I am trying to set up my first large scale meet up/shoot/campout next month. I want to get some great shots but also use a photo shoot as an excuse to go camping for a weekend with some really awesome people and have a blast. I have access to an antique fire engine, still trying to coordinate its' availability with some pin up models for a classic pin up shoot. (I am also learning that trying to schedule with models/MUAs/stylists and match that up with locations and borrowed props is much, much harder than herding cats). I have some other ideas that will require a lot more work to set up. Bottom line I feel like I have taken off the Lens Cap, and am starting to work. 

  Also getting some new toys. Invested in a light meter after testing one out on a shoot and finding it really did make life easier. That should be here soon. After trying to play with Auto FP HSS and work day-to-night shots in the desert, I decided it was time to invest in a really good ND filter. After searching around, I found one that one of my favorite shooters, Todd Owyeng reviewed and loved. He had me at "daylight becomes your bitch." So now I am waiting to try this filter out at the desert weekend I mentioned above. I am also looking at adding a D800 and some studio strobes to the lineup, but that will depend on how the money goes in the next few months. 

  I find I am also starting to get the hang of photoshop, not to completely alter images, but to enhance what is already there and make up for things I screwed up at the shoot. Right now I think I am still guilty of over processing, especially some of my portraits, hopefully not to the levels seen on You are Not a Photographer or Photoshop disasters, but I definitely need to learn a lighter hand. I also need to improve my workflow, start color correcting and add a better monitor and tablet into my arsenal. 

  Overall, a good year. Not where I want to be, but definitely moving in the right direction, feel like I am putting in the work and if I stick at it and keep putting my heart and soul into it, I can (and will) be where I need to be in a few years when it is time to transition fully into my new career. Ultimately, this is what I love doing, I will find a way to do this no matter what. I hope it becomes something I can use to support my family, but my ultimate goal is to make images I am happy with, pictures that capture what I see when I see the world around me, or the world in my mind's eye. If someone wants to pay me to do that, great, if not, well, I will still do it for love of art, I will just have to rethink my plans to provide for my family. 

   As for the blog, just over 11K hits as I write this. A lot of them are bots and link vampires, but it is safe to say that I am at least starting to get out there. Other than the usual friends who know me IRL, I have gotten comments from readers on other continents, so slowly but surely its' working its' way out into the ether. Seems like gear reviews are almost my most popular posts, will have to do more of those in the coming months. The second most read posts of mine chronicle my experiences with RAW artists and the controversy surrounding them. I think I will try to stick to more gear reviews and less arguments. 

    It's been a pretty good first year of blogging and ramping things up. Big things planned for the next one, stay focused!