For quite sometime now, I’ve been considering this latest post in an attempt to highlight my football coverage, and what it means from my perspective on the field as a sports photographer, and as a one-time HS player a long, long time ago.
Not only during this season, because the teams and games seem to all run together at some point, so I cannot truthfully separate the work into one Fall campaign. Football is a violent, punishing, and brutal sport on both sides of the ball, and at no matter what level. Talented players shine continuously and their abilities are a wonder to behold at times. But there are also quiet, game telling moments that I always try to be aware of as well. Whether it is a defeated defensive
lineman (above: Army’s Mike Gann a few week’s ago after loosing to Rutgers in overtime at the New Meadowlands Stadium) or a father quietly comforting his high school MVP son off the field after their loss in the state championship game in Syracuse University’s Carrier Dome a few season’s ago (right).
Th
e action will undoubtedly come and covering games in the varying stadiums and venues I frequent presents a whole new set of challenges. Weather becomes either an added bonus in covering games in early / mid – September, comfortably dressed in shorts and a polo shirt, or a major intimidating factor in how one goes about planning their overall workday on the field, particularly at this time of the year. Gloves (usually two pair), thermal underwear, lined work pants, Gortex ski hat, turtle neck shirt, work boots, and a few packets of hand warmers become just as important to me as any lens / camera combination and my shooting position on a sometimes wet or even frozen field. It becomes a mental battle at times in not allowing the elements to interfere with your main objective in covering games, especially as we’re now into HS playoff season, and those games are played at night, as well as the upcoming annual Army – Navy Game in mid-December. “Brrrr….!”
Football keeps me awake nights. Makes me (figuratively) bite my nails while driving to the ballpark. Even the most routine game coverage presents opportunities for phenomenal images, but the preparation and the photographer’s mindset must be right on point – all the time. That’s one thing about football, good pictures can
happen 80 yards away from your position (for a game winning field goal with a 600mm at left) or literally right in your lap, five yards away in the end zone (with a third camera around my neck with a short zoom at lower right. This camera is sometimes referred to as a “bailout” or “oh Sh*t!” camera, as all you have to do is aim and fire, because you’ve taped the focus ring in place, and it’s usually set at a smaller aperture to insure good depth of field on a wide angle or short zoom.) So in a sense, this third camera is like a remote – without actually being a remote, and on some days may never make an actual usable image on the field. Unlike basketball and baseball, where a high percentage of the pictures made in those sports are basically from a “station to station” viewpoint during a game. Meaning a photographer can anticipate where the action will take place; around either basket for basketball and along the base paths or home plate for baseball coverage. Players are photographed coming right at you; as in down the lane on a fast break or dunk in basketball, or running, diving, sliding into a base or a nasty collision at the plate in baseball. It is because of these familiarities with each sport and their playing fields that photographers can utilize remote camera(s), carefully aimed at one of these “stations” and literally just wait for the action to take place, and fire one or more remote cameras setup and pre-focused for that particular opportunity. Blog readers here know of my continual use of remotes, but I’m going to leave that topic for a later discussion, as I usually only install a remote camera in football for an overall view of a stadium, like this one (above) 3 hours prior to the annual Army – Navy game in Baltimore in 2007 – which incidentally means arriving up to 5 hours before game time to install that camera in a TV press box high above the crowd. This overall view is always a nice addition to the day’s take on the game and also serves as a file image of each particular stadium, so 
when images are needed for general stories in the future on a particular team / season / stadium & city, we have them “in the can” so to speak. I routinely mount a remote in West Point’s Michie Stadium; either on a rooftop of Kimsey Hall in the south end zone (below) to capture the pre-game parachute team arriving at midfield, and even mounted a remote a few weeks ago on their Jumbo-Tron scoreboard for a variation of this same view of the field from the north end zone.
is for the overhead views of the stadium (above), as well as using it for a neat huddle image with the camera mounted on a mono-pod where I actually extend the mono-pod or “stick” over the players, and fire the camera either by a hard-wire trigger or Pocket-Wizard radio transmitter & receiver combination.
*(to be continued.)
Chet Gordon resides in the lower Hudson Valley region of New York. A photojournalist for more than 25 years, he recently worked as Westchester Magazine's first photo editor, and previously was a staff photographer at four NYC metro area newspapers. He was also a photo editor at the NY Daily News for 5 years. His work has appeared in The New York Times, International Herald-Tribune, USA Today, MailOnline (UK), Army Times, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and Popular Photography magazines, among others. He is a career member of the National Press Photographer’s Association (NPPA), and a former board member of the NY Press Photographer’s Association (NYPPA). He served honorably as a U.S. Marine in the mid-1980's, including 2+ years stationed on Okinawa, Japan, and throughout Southeast Asia. A longtime volunteer and travel enthusiast, he accompanies several humanitarian aid clients on their international disaster relief and medical missions. Since 1997, he's worked in several African countries, the Middle East, Central and South America, Eastern Europe, as well as Afghanistan, Haiti, the Russian Federation, and Thailand. He routinely mentors young photographers looking to break into the industry and vacations in Bermuda and Kenya.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.