hi, my name is joann, and i'm a shoot-a-holic. i'm addicted to photographing sports.
no, but in all seriousness, what a GREAT feeling. i'm so glad i don't have to wait long to do it again (shooting volleyball -- TWO games -- over halloween weekend, holler!), and hopefully i won't have to wait much longer to see my shots, eek!
i shot the illinois soccer game vs. iowa this past saturday evening. i've shot soccer before, but that was in high school and it was during the daytime, not to mention my camera was terrible back then ... but anyway, this was definitely going to be a challenge. my original plan was to make it back to chicago early to late afternoon on friday, immediately drive down to champaign and shoot volleyball and watch midnight madness, and then shoot soccer on saturday night. unforch, i was still in the state of michigan when the doors for the volleyball game opened sooooooooooo i knew i wasn't gonna make it. i then revised my gameplan and planned on renting equipment early saturday morning before heading down to shoot the soccer game at night.
i went to dodd camera on armitage, and the guy working that day, john, was super helpful. they didn't have anything i was looking for (no olympus lenses, the only nikon body they had available to rent required a $5000 deposit, etc.), but he really worked to help me find other alternatives, and was very informative in answering my questions. there were two other guys in there that morning looking around for stuff (one guy said he had gone to school to study photography, the other guy seemed like he might have worked in photography -- he was talking about how he had just gotten a camera "yesterday, but it's not coming out until tomorrow" and whatnot) and i have to admit that i was a little intimidated and out of my element, but john was very kind and explained things/answered my questions without being elitist or condescending. i asked a question (what kind of camera should an amateur sports photographer like me get?) that kind of sparked a store debate about what camera i should buy, the pros and cons of each camera, etc. etc. after the whole big discussion died down, john came back to me and gave me a few suggestions and extended the offer to help me try out different lenses and stuff once i picked and purchased my body. so i walked out of the place without anything, but i still had a great experience there, so kudos to john and dodd.
anyway, dilemma. i knew my oly wouldn't hold up very well shooting soccer at night, so i let cary know about my situation, and he was super awesome and told me he could hook me up with some of his older equipment for the evening. i ended up shooting with his nikon d300 and a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. he took the camera out of his bag and it looked like a behemoth compared to my oly. i put the camera around my neck and thought i was gonna fall over. definitely a very hefty camera. i was a little nervous at first, didn't know how to touch it or how to do anything. but it was pretty easy to figure out. snapped a few practice shots, fiddled around with the buttons for a bit, and by the start of the game, i had a vague idea what i was doing and my shots were turning out decent. when the anthem started playing or whenever play stopped, i didn't let that camera hang around my neck the way i usually do with my oly -- i probably would have tipped over -- i hung onto that thing for my dear life. good lord was i nervous the whole time.
shooting at night is crazy. kudos to those who do it on a regular basis. it was waaaaay different from shooting ultimate in natural light. even though the soccer field was illuminated, there were definitely some dark spots that the camera was picking up. i think once i get a little more familiar with what adjustments to make to adjust to lighting situations and once i figure out how to do it while simultaneously shooting, i'll start getting the shots i want. just takes experience and lots of playing around and learning your camera, i guess. the shooting situation was definitely a little different than volleyball. lots of the play was happening around the goals, so you just have to choose where you want to stand. obviously, you don't/can't stand behind the net, so mostly we just staked out the different corners, always standing at the net illinois was attacking. i pretty much picked two or three spots and stuck to those spots. the daily illini photographer was running around trying to get his shot, i was content with standing where i was and letting it come to me. lazy, what up.
shooting soccer was super fun. much like volleyball, it's constant action, the ball's moving fast, the girls are running all over the place. even though i was standing just out of bounds, the camera can only do so much -- when the play isn't happening right in front of you, on the sideline you're standing you, it's hard to get a good shot of something cool happening across the field or in the middle of the field. that was a bummer, when the ball would spend a lot of time in a place where i couldn't get a good shot. the atmosphere was a little different -- you're not right up next to the players like you are with volleyball at huff -- but there were times when the players would be battling for the ball right in front of us, that was pretty cool. i think on one occasion, marissa mykines passed to shayla mutz, who was on the sideline literally right in front of us. sometimes when you're so focused on getting a shot and you're just staring at the action through the viewfinder, you don't notice at all what's happening outside your line of view, so if shayla hadn't of stopped that ball, that ball definitely would have come flying at all the photographers on the sideline because none of us saw that ball coming. that was about as close to the action as i got all night, although i did get to see TWO megan pawloski flip throw-ins on my sideline. i think i got a pretty nice sequence of it too, although i didn't get the shot of the release i wanted. i'm not quite sure what i prefer shooting, volleyball or soccer. i think volleyball gets the slight edge here, leaving aside the huff vs. track and soccer field argument (because huff obviously wins, you can't beat being on the floor, literally inches away from a player as she serves and a mere foot away from the screaming spike squad). i guess with volleyball there were just more opportunities to capture emotion and reactions, which i like.
the game in itself was pretty sick. the illini came from behind to win it. i feel like all the scoring happened in something ridiculous like a seven minute span. so nasty. an iowa girl got called for a handball right in front of the ref, and then krystin miller made the pk even though the keeper knew exactly where she wanted it. the game went into overtime and shayla mutz had a nice breakaway from her defender and got it past the iowa keeper. speaking of that iowa keeper, i should have asked her after the game if she used to or still does play ultimate. i think she would make a GREAT monster. that girl was LOUD as hell. every time she yelled stuff like "TURN!" or "to your left/right", "shade in", "drop back", and other random shit that monsters yell out to you, i jumped out of my skin, she was so loud.
the illinois team was super cool. they have this mix they jam out to before their games (courtney's favorite "hello good morning" song is on it, needless to say i breathlessly texted her this information). they looked really good. marissa mykines is FAST. that girl was all OVER the place, i got tired just watching her. i didn't get to see too much of juice, my fave, but i saw lots of shayla mutz, who played mostly right in front of me. like i said, i got to see the famous paz throw in, and even though she just barely missed the save, i saw a SICK kapicka layout -- cary has the photo, and it will most CERTAINLY make illinoisloyalty or the dia gallery. finally got to see vdb play, too. DEFINITELY glad i made it to this game.
first, HUGE shout out to cary, who not only let me borrow his equipment but also hooked me up with a SEASON media pass for all the "olympic" sports at the university of illinois. understandably, it doesn't get me in to shoot for football or basketball, but he says that getting the women's basketball pass isn't too difficult. this basically means that for the rest of this entire year, i'll be able to get into games free and before doors open, and i'll be allowed to shoot on the floor of events without getting hassled by the dia, which is gonna be great. there's no date or year on my pass either, so cary said i could very well just keep on using it beyond this year, too (another photographer in the vicinity at the time admitted that his pass was from 2008, lawl). it's pretty sweet to have someone who is well-known and respected within the u of i sports photography community vouch for you and go out on a limb for you and do something big like this, so i definitely appreciate it. it's definitely like a "foot in the door" for me, so hopefully i learn a lot, get a nicer camera, take some sick shots, and hopefully get picked up by the dia or someone like that for some freelance work. seriously, none of this would have happened with cary, so huge props to the guy.
second, big shout out to patagonia. that cap 2 half-zip pullover is amazing. legitimately, in the past week, i've worn it about 5/7 days. it's pretty gross, but i just pulled that puppy out of the washing machine, so looks like i'll be wearing it some more soon hollerrrrr. anyway, the soccer game was a night game, and it was a little chilly and a little windy down on the pitch. i didn't want to shoot in a bulky jacket or hoodie, so i wore a long sleeve shirt, my ultimate long sleeve, and brought my pata half-zip along as well. it started getting a little windy just as the game started so i pulled on the half-zip and i was TOASTY for the rest of the night. the other people shooting and recording were wearing jackets and hoodies.
finally, thanks to the soccer team for such a SICK game. i had been saying all season that i needed to get down there and watch this team play, and when i finally get the chance to go down, it's an exciting game that goes right down to the wire (i think it was the first game this season that was a come-from-behind win). no record-setting performance from vdb (ALMOST WENT TO THAT GAME, UGH), but great game by the team nonetheless.
i'm pretty sure i'm going down to campus halloween weekend to shoot two volleyball games. hopefully i'll either find a d90 to borrow and try out, or my uncle will lend me one of his old nikons for the weekend. i'm reeeeeeeally looking forward to it, and i'm even more so looking forward to seeing my SHOTS from soccer!
awkward/embarrassing story #1: when i got to the field, i realized that i really, really had to pee. i was pretty sure they weren't gonna let me into the ticket office to pee, so i decided i'd go for the first port-a-potty i saw. once i walked down to the field, i saw a port-a-potty off to the side, next to a tent about twenty yards off the field, so i headed straight for that one. i went in, j'd my p's a little over having a season media pass around my neck, took care of business, and came out totally thinking to myself that that was the cleanest port-a-potty i had ever been in in my entire life. a few minutes later, after the girls were done warming up, i saw a couple players start walking to that port-a-potty. i then noticed that the tent it was next to was their halftime tent. and then i realized i had used the team port-a-potty instead of the public ones. *phew* good thing no player was waiting in line to use it while i was in there...
awkward/embarrassing story #2: cary had some business to take care of before we met up to set up the camera, so i hung out behind the goal and watched the illinois goalies warm up. i noticed that none of them put their hands in their pockets (like i did when i was beasting in between the pipes for thundercatz), but probably because their shorts didn't have any pockets. but anyway, all the little ball boys and girls were hanging out behind the net too, waiting to pounce on any stray ball that the keepers knocked out or the coach kicked out. i wasn't paying full attention and was half-watching and half-texting, so i was taken a little by surprise when a couple balls would come my way (that's a TWSS situation). for the most part i just awkwardly moved out of the way, but one time a ball actually rolled right up to me. i kicked it back to the keeper (margaret would have been PROUD, it was a good ass kick!) before the ball kid could get to it. he was maybe five or six, SUPER tiny compared to his friends, and he stood there and watched me kicked it. he watched the trajectory of the ball. he watched it roll back to the keeper's feet. then he turned and looked at me and gave me the most dejected, most hurt face i had ever seen on a child. i felt like such a monster.
awkward/embarrassing story #3: the guy shooting for the di was someone i apparently had class with. he went on to describe how we had discussion together and everything. apparently i was so far checked out of college by second semester that not only could i not remember the kid, i couldn't even remember the class he was referring to. WELP.
awkward/embarrassing story #4: i got caught staring at janet rayfield. NOT MY FAULT SHE'S A TOTAL BADASS.
