ALMOST

I shot high school playoff football last night and call this shot an almost because it was one of the bigger plays of the game, maybe the play, and I missed it. Livonia Franklin (in white) was losing 10-7 and driving with about 3 minutes left against Livonia Stevenson (in blue). This was a pass play up the middle and I had a good read on the receiver and was following him. A Stevenson player picked it of, look closely in the photo, to stop the drive. Funny thing is if the pass would have gotten through and the Franklin player caught the ball it probably would have been a touchdown to possibly win the game. Would I have had a great photo? Probably not but I would have had the winning play.

Shooting sports has quite a bit of luck involved. But part of that luck is being prepared and making the right decision on where to shoot from. That comes with practice. I’m frustrated with my sports photography because I feel like I’m rusty at it from not shooting sports several times a week like when I was a staffer. I always loved to shoot sports because of the action but also because of the emotion. I use to think I was good at it back then but now I wonder if I was ever good at it or just got lucky once in awhile?

I was also a little frustrated on how the photo ran in the paper today. The shot used was not the best shot, IMO, and it was cropped to a square and was quite boring. It was suppose to be the game of the week but only one photo ran small. It could have been for several reasons (space, decided the other game was bigger, to much digital noise in the photos which is a whole other topic) but maybe the editors just didn’t think they were good enough and they were all boring. And based on the photo that ran I would think the photographer wasn’t very good at shooting football. My wife basically said the photo sucked. Oh well, I just have to keep shooting and today is a new day. Sorry for the babbling post. It doesn’t seem to have a point. Here are a couple more and there are some on the gallery at the Detroit News.

Lead photo with story.

How it ran in the paper.

Touchdown on the next play from above their only TD of the game.

Nice catch across the middle.

This ended up being the winning field goal with the final score 10-7.

On a cool note. The player on the left made sure the player on the right got to hold the regional championship trophy first because he was injured and knocked out of the game. I thought it was a good team thing to do and you don't always see that anymore.