I recently developed a terrible case of tennis elbow. Though I felt my elbow feeling shifty a couple months back, I stupidly ignored it and played even harder. Now the pain has spread to the lower tricep and upper forearm on my right arm. The pain has even begun to make everyday things difficult: going to the gym, getting a glass of water, hell even unplugging my phone makes me wince. Because of this, I’ve decided to try a revolutionary treatment plan: rest. And this time I ain’t just saying it! Now since I can’t play tennis, I’ll just have to shoot and write about tennis.
For some reason, I remember picking up tennis again exactly on July 5th, 2016. I messed around with the sport when I was kid, struggling to hit the ball and when I did, it just went over the fence. Like all sports, the performance roadmap is fulfilling, perhaps more so than other sports for me. I think it’s because of the sheer dexterity and understanding of all the mechanics needed to hit the damn thing that makes it so rewarding figure it out. Needless to say, it takes a long time to get proficient at it.
Once you do figure it out, the act is incredibly soothing, almost like throwing a baseball or Frisbee around, but 10x cooler. Just rallying around with another player, hitting medium paced forehands and backhands down the middle of the court over and over again is relaxing in a rhythmic sort of way. It’s a task that takes practice to get comfortable with but is easy enough to let your instincts take over a bit. It straddles and sometimes allows you to enter that “flow state” where every ball is snapping off your racket at just the right speed and direction. It’s essentially the closest thing you can do to feeling like a god damn Jedi.
And just like the Jedi, the temptation to turn to the dark side is always there. Similar to other individual sports, you’re your best friend or your worst enemy. Missing a couple of easy gimme forehands can send the most composed player into a fit of self-directed beratement. If the stakes are higher, frustration is often directed externally as well (think McEnroe or Roddick). It’s an exercise within itself to remain composed when you’re not playing at your best.
And a quick aside speaking of the dark side, lets all remember the incredibly badass “Darth Federer” outfit Fed had on at the 2007 US Open!
These are the two things you really want to capture when you’re shooting a tennis match: form and emotion. You want to capture the physical form and act of hitting a tennis ball. You want to see motion conveyed through the racket and power from the body. You also need to see the emotional determination written on someone’s face, either of Zen or agitation.
There are a few things you can do to maximize your chances of shooting compelling sports photos. Keep in mind the tips from shooting ultimate Frisbee applies here too.
Shoot in Aperture Priority - it’s helpful to shoot with shutter priority mode to control the amount of motion blur from the racket swing but still lock in a player’s face. This method works well in daytime shooting but can cause issues when working in low light situations. The lower the available light, the more your camera will open up the aperture and reducing your DOF. In many cases, shooting at these shallow DOFs will make tack sharp focusing very difficult. In this case, set up focusing traps and try out the third tip.
Fast Zoom Telephoto Lens – having a “fast” lens is almost always desirable since it gives the shooter more creative control over what shot they want to achieve. However, in sports photography, it’s essential to have a good fast zoom lens because you can only get as close the sidelines, and in most cases you won’t even be that close. The zoom lens allows you to change the framing of the photo, thus allows you to either isolate and focus on certain elements or capture as much context as you can.
Spray and Pray – getting sharp photos in high speed photography is incredibly difficult. There is a constant struggle over getting the player’s face tack sharp while still achieving an aesthetic level of DOF, and it can be incredible frustrating. Most pros shoot in a deeper DOF (higher aperture > f1.8) and crank up the ISO to still shoot at a high shutter speed. They’ll also have camera bodies that can shoot over 10 FPS and essentially spray and pray to get at least one usable shot. You should do that as well. There’s a stigma labeling spray and pray as artless and mindless but with sports photography, especially during a live game, you don’t have the luxury of perfectly composing your shots. Of course you should always try to consciously make these artistic decisions and mentally frame your shots but keep both methods in hand. Save the high horse mentality and spray and pray away!
