Awards this Year

WPA networks Sports

I've been photographing as much football as possible for the WPA network.  Football photos sell best.  It has been fun seeing the same game played in different places. 

 I went to Stadium High School and had to shoot at ISO 20,000.  At Stadium I saw inner city people of color playing the sport under tense circumstances with heightened security.   The Stadium there is amazing, but I already knew that since my step-great-grandma lived next door to it. They have worn out turf and lights that are too far from the field.   Mostly  1/1000 f/ 2.8 20,000

I went to Lacey and saw a mix of inner city kids and military kids playing some very rough ball with lots of injuries and a great half time show.  South Sound Stadium is dark and the air there fills with smoke at night.  They have nice turf and metal stands and terrible flickering lights.   Mostly  1/1000 f/ 2.8 16,000

I went to Hoquiam and watched the  rural white kids play football with a huge fan base in the stands.   They played in a baseball stadium that was built in 1938. They play on a grass baseball field and some of the dirt from one of the base paths goes into one of the football end zones.  The grass is hard, I wore knee pads.    Mostly  1/1000 f/ 2.8 10,000.  Each end zone was very different and the field basically had a gradient of light running from the infield to the outfield.  The infield end zone was  1/1000 f/ 2.8 8,000, the outfield end zone was Mostly  1/1000 f/ 2.8 and maybe 16,000 perhaps higher, I never did get the exposure just right in that end zone.

I went to Tacoma and watched a small urban private school play 8 man football against a small, poor and rural public school.  They played in a nice turfed stadium that belonged to different schools.

I've been to all but one Shelton home game and watched Shelton lose by a lot every time.   Shelton lost its coach of 23 years and the AD last year.  Both of them resigned.  A new coach was not hired until very late in the year.  Shelton has so-so lights and a soft grass field.  I get 1/1000 f/ 2.8 16,000 in Shelton.

All these kids and parents and cheerleaders were participating in the same sport, following the same rules but under such different circumstances.  I found it fascinating.

I'm shooting football in full manual mode now, it is a pain to do that with Nikon since Nikon does not have usable and lockable memory banks that store important settings.  Normally a field is much brighter than the sideline.  With my D500 to switch to shooting the sideline I have to turn my shutter speed way down and would also like to turn the ISO down if I have the time to do that before the next play on the field.  

My D7100 has perfect user settings banks, but the D7100 can't focus well in the dark and the ISO does not go up high enough.  I wish Nikon would put user setting banks on the dial on the higher end cameras, it would make my life easier.

I've learned when shooting night football to stay at 1/1000th or faster no matter how high I have to crank up the ISO.  I also always expose well to the right, then in post I can turn the exposure down a bit and lesson some of the ISO noise.  

People tend to lower the shutter speed and the ISO and then get dark blurry photos that they try to push in post.  I find that when I do that I just get a big mess.  A yearbook tog on the sideline was shooting at 1/800, ISO 5,000, f/2.8 while I was shooting at Mostly  1/1000 f/ 2.8 10,000 for the same play.

For day games I am starting to use my teleconverter.  I used to think that photos with my teleconverter were too soft.  They are softer, but it does not matter unless I go pixel peeping.  For the WPAnetwork upload requirement of no greater than 2,400 pixels per side it does not matter!  

With my crop sensor my teleconverter gives me the same as a 410-600 lens on a full frame.  The only real problem with the teleconverter is the 5.6 f stop.  It is great for day games though.  I get to take so many more shots with the reach of a 600mm!  I can pretty much shoot every inch of a soccer field during the day.  It actually gets tiring being able to shoot everything instead of having to wait for the action to come to me.

1/1000 f/ 2.8 8,000 would have worked here.  I overexposed it with ISO 10,000

South Sound Stadium is dark and the air there fills with smoke at night.  Mostly  1/1000 f/ 2.8 16,000

South Sound Stadium is dark and the air there fills with smoke at night.  Mostly  1/1000 f/ 2.8 16,000

2X Teleconverter photos:

Fall sports

It has been a strange few months

My job was the first to go in the first round of cuts. 

The WPA network has been good to me during football season anyway and I've sold some team photos, but always get stuck with a few prints I can't sell.  I think letting the newspaper run one before I sold all the prints did not help.  I'm stuck with 4 8x12 prints.    Getting stuck with one is okay, but getting stuck with four is not okay.

Summer Soccer Ends, Fall Football Begins

Styx a Fire and first run of wedding ad

Styx Concert at Little Creek. First three songs, no flash.

Well this was a fun gig for sure.  I did the first three songs with no flash thing.  I shot everything with my 17-55 mm lens. Some of the shots were at 17mm, that's how close I was to the action.

Styx performs at the Little Creek Casino in

Shelton Washington, USA August 25th 2018.

Photos all rights reserved Shawna

Whelan

Lawrence Gowan  lead and backing vocals, keyboards Styx.

Nikon D7100

35.0 mm f/1.8

ƒ/1.8

 

35.0 mm

1/2000

 

2500

Nikon D500

17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8

ƒ/2.8

 

17.0 mm

1/125

 

4000

Lawrence Gowan plays the keyboard behind his back during the opening song– lead and backing vocals, keyboards

Nikon D500

17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8

ƒ/2.8

 

32.0 m
m

1/640

 

3200

 

Ricky Phillips – bass, backing vocals, guitar

Tommy Shaw  guitar, lead and backing vocals

Nikon D500
17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8
ƒ/2.8
 
17.0 mm!!!
1/500
 
3200
Flash (off, did not fire)
 
Show EXIF

James "J.Y." Young one of  two orginal band members guitar, lead and backing vocals

Nikon D500

17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8

ƒ/2.8

 

50.0 mm

1/2000

 

3200

Tommy Shaw  guitar, lead and backing vocals

Nikon D500

17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8

ƒ/2.8

 

36.0 mm

1/400

 

25600

I really want a second D500 body.  I had my D7100 with a 35mm /1.8 and my D500 with the above mentioned lens.  The ISO control is in a different place for each camera and is actually second function button for the D7100 .

I followed advice from a very good you tube video and shot this in A mode.  Shooting in A mode makes alot of sense, when I know I will be shooting wide open all night.  I kept my eye on the shutter speed in my view finder display and adjusted the ISO to get a shutter speed of at least 1/125th.  This works well when you have a nice margin to work with where you don't need a really fast shutter and you don't have to up your ISO to insane levels.  I don't know if this technique would work so well for night football.

I've started loading IPTC profiles into my D500.

Forest Fire Base Camp

Went on a media tour of the  Maple Forest Fire up the Hamma Hamma and the Forest Fire base camp.  My first time on a special tour of a fire.  The tour was interesting and my photos blew up on Facebook.  My Facebook page has a lot of new likes and now my posts get seen more often.  I hope some of that translates to some photo work.

Look at all that exposure!  People die from exposure.  Please give me cash instead.

I was feeling pretty depressed last month, but this month is better.  I keep forgetting that this is a feast or famine job. This month I am feasting but not thanks to any of my photojournalism.    Photojournalism is now a hobby that I need to support with wedding, real estate and event photography.

Arson fire in town that forced a shelter in place order.  This arson case has been solved

Column of smoke from another arson fire

Fire fighter Tent City at the local airport Sanderson Field

One fire basecamp photo on the front page August 23

Two fire bascamp photos a-11