John Cameron. 02-07-10. Artist Peter Diana

Mike Tomlin, Pittsburgh Steelers Coach. Digital Photograph. February 2008 - by Peter Diana

This week, I am once again trying to find artists that focus on emotions in sports. I found the artist Peter Diana this week, and he has a lot of nice images containing a lot of emotion. I really like his choice of backgrounds in his images. His photographs involve a person, who looks like he is in a deep train of thought. This is what I'm trying to do also. Peter Diana, has a lot of emotion type photographs on his website, but it was a little tricky to find some that I could post on here. But I found a few to show you what I'm talking about.

Pittsburgh Pirates manager John Russell - Digital Photograph, September 2009. By Peter Diana

I know that I'm mainly focusing on emotion, but I need to divide the categories of emotion. This week, I'm looking at coaches of teams. Seeing where and what they are doing. What are they thinking about to do better? A lot can be told from these photographs. I remember when I did my internship at basketball games, that my boss would always tell me to focus on the coach too. To also not forget about the coach because they are so important and they always show a lot of emotion. I really like the position of the coach in this image, although a lot of information is blurred about from a low aperture, you are still drawn into the coach. When I shot my basketball game a few weeks ago, I wondered if doing too much work in photoshop could ruin a real life sporting image. But I think a little work was done here to improve highlights and shadows (maybe even blur). So I will use these tools too, because it's visually pleasing to me at least.

Pittsburgh Pirates manager John Russell - Digital Photograph, September 2009. By Peter Diana

Peter Diana works out of the Pittsburgh area, and it has made me realize how lucky he is to be in such a good area with famous teams. Pittsburg have teams in all of the national leagues here in the United States, and photographing sports in this city would be so fun. The city loves sports, and this is a place that I could become familiar with one day.

www.peterdiana.com

John Cameron. 02/24/10. Idea/Concept Blog

Andy Marte #25 (left), Niuman Romero #4 and Carlos Carrasco #59 of the Cleveland Indians- Digital Photograph. 2009 - by Brad Mangin

I went into a meeting with my teacher the other day, wondering if I should shoot other sports. He mentioned the fact about basketball season ending soon, and how it might be good to focus on a sport that is getting ready to start. I said Baseball, and we agreed on something like that. Paul said that I should focus on a season long goal of capturing the beginning to the end. Firstly, by showing try-outs early on (photographs of emotions of struggling in try outs, missing the list/team etc). Then by going on through the season. Once again focusing on emotion. Try-outs to make it into a team can be brutal, and showing emotion can be beautiful. It sounds like a lot of fun. Paul also recommended maybe taking photographs of other things instead of players. Like maybe the team list (with the names that made the team) and other things like sports bags, tape, shoes, etc.

Miguel Cabrera #24 and coach Andy Van Slyke #18 of the Detroit Tigers. Digital Photograph. 2009 - by Brad Mangin

I went ahead and called the athletic director of the local high school I have become close to. He said the baseball team practices everyday, and that they have a scrimmage on March the 6th. So it is pre-season, and I can start shooting to capture the early parts to the season.

The images that I uploaded, are a little bit of what I'm trying to capture. Fun in the dugout, and happiness over a good play. Something like that. It's gonna be fun, and I look forward to it.

John Cameron. 02-07-10 Andrew Weber

Motor City Bowl, Central Michigan vs Florida Atlantic. Taken by Andrew Weber. December 2008. Digital Photograph

This week I was trying to find an artist that tries to focus on athletes outside of the game as well as inside the game. I came across a blog from Andrew Weber, where he documented how he shot a football game. There was photographs of the actual game taking place, and also photographs of the athletes outside of the game. These photographs were interesting to me, and they are exactly what I have been looking for.

Motor City Bowl, Central Michigan vs Florida Atlantic. Taken by Andrew Weber. December 2008. Digital Photograph

The thing that I learned from Weber, was that he gets the good shots because he is constantly moving around. He does not stay in the one spot. I went and shot a basketball game last week, and I made the mistake of staying in the one spot. I need to move around to get different angles, and different scenes to capture diversity and interesting photographs. Weber talked about how he was leaving the media room, and how he saw the athletes walking back up the tunnel to get ready for the big game. So he whipped his camera out and got some shots. Something simple and easy to do.

Motor City Bowl, Central Michigan vs Florida Atlantic. Taken by Andrew Weber. December 2008. Digital Photograph

Andrew Weber is based out of the Ohio area and he photographs a lot of the major sports. He was the placekicker for the toledo football team and he has made it into magazines such as Sports Illustrated and ESPN. www.andrewjweber.com

John Cameron 02-17-10. Idea/Concept blog.

"Here are the Springers" - Digital Photograph, February 2010. By John Cameron

So I went out to a High School Basketball game Monday night, and I photographed the night away. It was fun and I learned a lot. I showed up about 20 minutes before the Senior Varsity game, to see the Junior Varsity game. This "JV" game went on for ages, and the game was decided after four overtimes. This gave me plenty of time to adjust the lighting settings that I wanted. From the get go, I knew that it was going to be tough, because the gym didn't provide much light for such quick movements. But I told myself that I wanted to focus on emotions, maybe from the bench, or from celebrating a good moment in the game. For this semester, I want to focus on emotions, so the viewer can really look into the photograph and think about what the person is doing.

"This is fun" - Digital Photograph, February 2010 - by John Cameron

With the image above, these junior varsity players just witnessed one of their team mates sink a three pointer on the buzzer to send the game into the fourth overtime. When you look into the image, you can see laughter, positive feelings, and it shows that these boys are having a really good time. I liked this angle of the players, but after driving home, I thought about what I could do to get some better shots. There was plenty of room in the grand stands behind the players, so next time I might go behind the bench to get some photographs of the coach talking to his team during a timeout. I talked to the athletic director of Benedictine High School, and he said that the coach was fine with me going to their practices, and a home game this Sunday. So I'll be hopefully posting more images next week. I might even try to get into a locker room.

"Timeout" - Digital Photograph, February 2009. By John Cameron

John Cameron. 02/15/10. Visiting Artist - Hank Willis Thomas

Smokin Joe Ain't Je'mama, 1978/2006, Lightjet Print, Variable - by Hank Willis Thomas

Over the past few visiting artists, I have really focused on how an artist's speech can effect their lecture. I went and saw the Paul Pfeiffer lecture, and although I enjoyed his interesting work, I think his speech and way of talking about his work effected his lecture in a negative way. However, at Hank Willis Thomas' lecture, he spoke very well, made the crowd laugh a few times, and spoke very confidently about how he has done his work. I believe this helped his art to be looked at with an easier understanding. I really liked his "Unbranded" series.

Slack Power, 1969/2006, Digital C, Variable - by Hank Willis Thomas

I also liked how he figured that he should show work from when he first started out from college. To let us students relate to his work in a easier fashion. I know a lot of students are worried about the real world after we graduate, and it felt good to hear him talk about how he went through the same thing. Like how he graduated from his under graduate studies, and then tried to be a photographer assistant. This didn't work out for him and he felt like he had no ambition. So he tried the option of graduate school. These are the things I wanted to hear from a professional who has done so well over the past few years. I wanted to hear that professionals, that make good money, also struggled when they were fresh out of college.

I didn't really feel as though I had any connection to the type of work he does. But I am interested in trying out the style of erasing writing, or words that might be in photographs. As it leaves the viewer guessing about what the image may be about. Overall, one of my favorite lectures so far. www.hankwillisthomas.com

John Cameron. 02/15/10. Visiting Artist - Paul Pfeiffer

Paul Pfieffer's work was very interesting and I liked looking at it. The way he takes things out of photographs/films is a true talent and an amazing thing to be able to witness. However, his delivery about his own work threw me off. I understood everything he said about his work, but it seemed as though he got confused about what he was talking about. It effected the lecture in my opinion, but his work and talent helped him out a lot. I liked the way how Pfieffer talked about his work, but there was a lot of long silences in between his speech. I'l learn from this.

Paul Pfeiffer - Photograph

I want to be a sports photographer myself and I really like basketball. So when I saw the basketball images, I was amazed by his work. I know that in some shoots, I try to erase brand names, or team names, but Pfeiffer did it all. Taking every athlete (except one in some cases) out of an image and replacing it with the crowd, floor, and ceiling is truly skillful. It creates a whole new feeling. Where is everyone else? Is the whole crowd just looking at him? His conceptual ideas were once again simple, but effective pieces of work. I need to think hard, but easy at the same time. Think of something and imagine what it could do to be interesting. The idea of Pfeiffer making a sunset sun, and a sunrise sun, merge into one another from an up and down position, is a hard thought out idea, but also a easy idea to understand at the same time.

John Cameron. 02-14-10 Artist Scott Brown

Coach Shaka Smart and Larry Sanders, December 2009, taken by Scott Brown

From last week, I have planned to shoot athletes in school. I'm going to photograph a High School basketball game tomorrow night. I chose the photographer Scott Brown because I worked with him for a year, and I assisted him in many basketball games. I only got to photograph an actual game for total of about 10 minutes. But I still learned what to catch. Scott taught me to never look at the images on the camera. Because you may miss out on important parts of a game. Just because it may be a timeout, that doesn't mean it's a break for you. This is where you can get shots of the coaches talking and then the huddle too.

Larry Sanders, February 2010, taken by Scott Brown

Scott has taken sports photographs for a long time now. He has worked for Sports Illustrated and now works mainly in Richmond, Virginia. When he photographs a basketball game, he uses strobes in the ceiling, and multiple cameras (behind the hoop). He uses triggers, that are attached to his lens that he uses himself court side. The trigger is pushed, and then sent through his pocket wizards to get a photograph from another camera. However, I will just be using my camera, and two lenses that I have. But I'm looking forward to the challenge, and am glad that I have a bit of experience from watching Scott do many games.

www.skbphoto.com