2009 Football - Back Home to Williams-Brice...
posted by Gameshots, 9/16/2009 03:14:00 PM
After starting the season with the ACC road game at NC State and then the SEC battle in Athens with Georgia, the time has finally come to play at home in Columbia. The stadium definitely has a new 'look' with many improvements (and signs/banners) and there will be many players and coaches who will finally be able to experience the excitement of Williams-Brice stadium for the very first time. Gamecockcentral has been busy covering everything from practices, to the games, and I wanted to share a few photos and thoughts with you as I resume my 'Photo Blog'.
In this blog, I am going to show a few differences that you may notice when games are shot at home, in Williams-Brice Stadium, as opposed to shooting in a road stadium. Angles. Briefly stated. When on the road, photographers are able to shoot from behind the endzone. At Williams-Brice Photographers are only able to shoot from the sidelines beyond where the teams are located. Hopefully, you will not be able to notice much difference in content but many times it does present challenges for the photographers.
When shooting from behind the endzone, one sees a unique perspective on the interior line, quarterback, and running backs that is often not visible from the sidelines. Especially seeing the facial expressions and the eyes of the players. All of these pictures were shot from behind the endzone.
Another huge difference for the game at Williams-Brice Stadium is for the players. Those players who have never experienced running onto the field to '2001'. For those freshmen, walk-ons, JUCO's, etc., it will be an adrenaline rush to run out on the field in a rocking stadium for the best entrance in college football! Bar none.
Here are a few pictures from galleries of the last two games, along with a comment or two.
Several true freshman players are expected to contribute in the game. Shown here is Jarvis Giles running the ball.
Alshon Jeffery with a reception...
The view from behind the endzone of Eric Norwood running the 'pick-6' into the endzone while Tavarres King is desperately trying to knock the ball loose from behind (his hand at top of picture).
Stephon Gilmore, another true Freshman, sacking Joe Cox and knocking the football loose (recovered by Georgia).
This picture of Coach Lorenzo Ward illustrates a photo technique that I often get asked about. How do you make the subject stand out and get the background to appear blurry? The term for this is 'Bokeh'. Bokeh is how lenses render out-of-focus areas. Ideally these areas are soft and smooth. Basically, this is determined by three main things.
1. The aperture of the lens
2. The focal length of the lens
3. The distance you are from the subject.
Usually I prefer using the f.2 200mm lense because the lense is superior to every other lense in this area (Bokeh) but this one was shot with my f2.8 70-200mm lense which was zoomed to 130mm. When this photo was shot Lorenzo was about ten feet away and the f-stop was f4.5. If my goal had been to make the background even more blurry (which wasn't my goal), I would have probably moved a step closer and lowered the f-stop to f2.8.
This group shot captured the cheerleading team in Athens. At home at Williams-Brice, it will be a much different story (and pictures). There will now be many Carolina cheerleaders everywhere.
See you Saturday night!
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2009 Football- Back Home to Williams-Brice...
After starting the season with the ACC road game at NC State and then the SEC battle in Athens with Georgia, the time has finally come to play at home in Columbia. The stadium definitely has a new 'look' with many improvements (and signs/banners) and there will be many players and coaches who will finally be able to experience the excitement of Williams-Brice stadium for the very first time. Gamecockcentral has been busy covering everything from practices, to the games, and I wanted to share a few photos and thoughts with you as I resume my 'Photo Blog'.
In this blog, I am going to show a few differences that you may notice when games are shot at home, in Williams-Brice Stadium, as opposed to shooting in a road stadium. Angles. Briefly stated. When on the road, photographers are able to shoot from behind the endzone. At Williams-Brice Photographers are only able to shoot from the sidelines beyond where the teams are located. Hopefully, you will not be able to notice much difference in content but many times it does present challenges for the photographers.
When shooting from behind the endzone, one sees a unique perspective on the interior line, quarterback, and running backs that is often not visible from the sidelines. Especially seeing the facial expressions and the eyes of the players. All of these pictures were shot from behind the endzone.
Another huge difference for the game at Williams-Brice Stadium is for the players. Those players who have never experienced running onto the field to '2001'. For those freshmen, walk-ons, JUCO's, etc., it will be an adrenaline rush to run out on the field in a rocking stadium for the best entrance in college football! Bar none.
Here are a few pictures from galleries of the last two games, along with a comment or two.
Several true freshman players are expected to contribute in the game. Shown here is Jarvis Giles running the ball.
Alshon Jeffery with a reception...
The view from behind the endzone of Eric Norwood running the 'pick-6' into the endzone while Tavarres King is desperately trying to knock the ball loose from behind (his hand at top of picture).
Stephon Gilmore, another true Freshman, sacking Joe Cox and knocking the football loose (recovered by Georgia).
This picture of Coach Lorenzo Ward illustrates a photo technique that I often get asked about. How do you make the subject stand out and get the background to appear blurry? The term for this is 'Bokeh'. Bokeh is how lenses render out-of-focus areas. Ideally these areas are soft and smooth. Basically, this is determined by three main things.
1. The aperture of the lens
2. The focal length of the lens
3. The distance you are from the subject.
Usually I prefer using the f.2 200mm lense because the lense is superior to every other lense in this area (Bokeh) but this one was shot with my f2.8 70-200mm lense which was zoomed to 130mm. When this photo was shot Lorenzo was about ten feet away and the f-stop was f4.5. If my goal had been to make the background even more blurry (which wasn't my goal), I would have probably moved a step closer and lowered the f-stop to f2.8.
This group shot captured the cheerleading team in Athens. At home at Williams-Brice, it will be a much different story (and pictures). There will now be many Carolina cheerleaders everywhere.
See you Saturday night!
Link to this entry - Discuss this entry - Return to Blog Home
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Paul Collins. Paul has been a GamecockCentral photographer since 2005, with a focus on Gamecock football, men's basketball and baseball. He may be reached by email at paul(at)gamecockcentral.com. Replace (at) with @.