iPhoning It In at Sportsshooter Academy VI.

The past three weeks have been a whirlwind. It’s not like I didn’t have time to blog — I did. But I used that time to rest and spend time with family — priorities, right?

Now I have a chance to catch my breath, catch up on the blog, and catch up on my sleep. I’m lucky and grateful for all the opportunities that have come my way in the recent weeks.

In that time I shot the Seahawks first mini-camp of the season, did some work for a non-profit, flew to California to teach at a workshop, and then shot the first home series of the Mariners season. Because I was in California, I wasn’t able to shoot the Sounders FC home game against the Kansas City Wizards.

Let’s start with the workshop.

The Sportsshooter Academy started as the brainchild of my good
friend Robert Hanashiro of USA Today, who also started the
Sportsshooter newsletter some years ago, then evolved it into the most
popular website for sports photography in the world, Sportsshooter.com.

Along
the way he wanted to keep giving back so he started his now-famous
“Sportshooter Luaus”, which were two-day workshops full of speakers and
breakout sessions featuring such photography luminaries as Bill Eppridge, Vincent Laforet, Brad Mangin, Peter Read Miller and Robert
Seale.

Although Bert has been inviting me to help with the
Academy for years, this was the first time my schedule allowed me to
participate.

I was fortunate to be invited to participate as one of the faculty of what essentially is a four-day, intensive workshop where participants spend the day shooting sports under the watchful eye of veteran photographers. The nights are spent editing and critiquing. The next morning, there is a quick slide show of the each participants favorite images along with faculty critiques and then we hit the streets (or in this case, horse tracks, boxing rings, baseball diamonds and beach volleyball courts) in order to do it all again.

Thanks to the generosity of Nikon, in particular Bill Pekala and Ron Taniwaki, the students had access to a bevy of top-of-the-line Nikon gear. Want to shoot a Nikon D3 with a VR 400mm/f.28 lens? Nikon loaned it to you. Longer? Smaller? More? Nikon not only loaned equipment but the underwrote the entire cost of the workshop for participants. That’s right. Each student attended for FREE, thanks to Nikon.

Boy, what I had been missing! It was four days of fun andteaching, but also LEARNING for yours truly.

I arrived at 9:00 am after an early morning flight, and was whisked from the airport to the academy hotel by 9:20. By 9:30 I was giving a presentation in front of 50 participants. My job was to send them out the door to their first assignment, inspired and ready to work.

By offering them 10 tips on how to make better sports photos, I shared some of my knowledge gleaned from nearly 20 years in the industry. Not sure how much of an impact my talk had, but that night I was treated to some wonderful imagery captured by the participants over the course of the day.

My first day was spent teaching remote cameras and baseball shooting. We started at a junior college game, then were along the foul lines at a Division I game between Irvine and Long Beach State. While the students wandered seeking the best positions and the best angles, I wandered around with my iPhone taking pictures between bouts of answering questions and offering advice.

This isn’t supposed to be an ad for the iPhone, but we did think it funny that while the students were running around with top-of-the-line Nikon D3’s and D700’s, most of the faculty was taking pictures with iPhones.

Spare bats and balls, along with some fertilizer wait for use in a groundskeeper’s shed:

Used baseballs sit in a bucket waiting for batting practice.:

Players from Fullerton College prepare in the dugout for their game with East Los Angeles College:

Fullerton’s lineup card:

One of the Academy participants seeks a different vantage point after reaching the top of the dugout via a convenient ladder:

A reliever for Fullerton takes his warmup tosses in the bullpen:

Over the four days I saw some great photos and also some brave mistakes, but more importantly I met some incredible people and learned so much myself. If you are EVER able to listen to Dave Black speak or offer a critique, lend an ear. His attention to photographic detail is unmatched and I was taking copious mental notes every time he uttered a word. Add that Dave is as humble and personable as he is knowledgeable, and well, it’s just a treat to be around him.

Also on the faculty were Matt Brown, a freelancer who works for a number of universities and athletic conferences in Southern California, Wally Skalij and Myung Chun of the Los Angeles Times, Michael Goulding of the Orange County Register, and freelancers Lucas Gilman, David Honl. Great shooters, even better people.

If you are interested in stepping up your game in sports photography, try to attend one of the Sportsshooter Academies. They are held in Southern California, and dates are announced at Sportsshooter.com months in advance.

Apr 19, 2009 | Categories: Baseball, Nikon, Sports, iphone | 3 Comments »