Just like every time you shoot and event, you need to do a check on all your gear. Today I am gearing up to go to Palo Alto to visit Stanford and cover the Bank of the West Classic.
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| The gear line up includes the following Canon equipment: 5D MKII, 1D MKII and MKIII bodies, 70-200mm 2.8L, 16-35mm 2.8L, 400mm 2.8L series lenses, chargers, batteries, Think Tank International bag, a speed belt also by Think Tank, a MacBook Pro and a mono-pod. |
Last year Marion Bartoli of France took the win.
Day 1:
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| 29 July 2010: Stanford Calif. Victoria AZARENKA (BLR) returns a serve against Melanie OUDIN (USA) on Thursday during the Bank of the West Classic women's tennis tournament at the Taube Family Tennis Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Konstandinos Goumenidis / Southcreek Global |
This will be the 4th year I covered this tennis match. The first time I covered this event I had a little
Nikon D50 with not so great lenses. It also did not help that my overall sports background was very limited. Now, as you can see, my collection of camera equipment is much better. Does this help with taking photos? Sure! The reaction time is spectacular and if you have studies photography and have the experience and knowledge of taking photographs, investing in good camera gear will help. But we are not talking about gear.
Tennis is not an easy sport to get creative in when you have limited amount of space to photograph the event. Match after match it seems to be the same...unless some crazy event happens to where the player dives for the ball and so on...but that will probably not happen all the time. SO, they key to success in photographing anything, and not only sports, is to be creative. Now most people who have been shooting for a while and have invested time and money into the art of any photography could probably grab a very similar shot that I posted above and in the following photograph, right?
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| 29 July 2010: Stanford Calif. Maria SHARAPOVA (RUS) returns a serve against Olga GOVORTSOVA (BLR)on Thursday during the Bank of the West Classic women's tennis tournament at the Taube Family Tennis Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Konstandinos Goumenidis / Southcreek Global | | |
I sure think so...especially when you have about 10 other photographers working for AP, or Getty, and any of these big names, everyone is going to get the same photograph. So what do you do? You move! You move around until you find a place that may be cool to shoot from. I moved from the side of the court to the side of the stadium, to the bleachers, and everywhere in between. Now, I understand that some times you cannot get places because they will not allow you to go or there is not space, but it is always nice to try! Here are some photos from and angle I enjoyed:
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| 29 July 2010: Stanford Calif. Maria SHARAPOVA (RUS) serves against Olga GOVORTSOVA (BLR)on Thursday during the Bank of the West Classic women's tennis tournament at the Taube Family Tennis Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Konstandinos Goumenidis / Southcreek Global |
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| 29 July 2010: Stanford Calif. Maria SHARAPOVA (RUS) serves against Olga GOVORTSOVA (BLR)on Thursday during the Bank of the West Classic women's tennis tournament at the Taube Family Tennis Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Konstandinos Goumenidis / Southcreek Global |
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| 29 July 2010: Stanford Calif. Melanie OUDIN (USA) serves against Victoria AZARENKA (BLR) on Thursday during the Bank of the West Classic women's tennis tournament at the Taube Family Tennis Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Konstandinos Goumenidis / Southcreek Global | |
See the difference? Though the other photos are great to look at there can be distractions in the background or very similar shots to the guy sitting next to you. In this case, I got up high and shot down with some pleasing results!
I hope this has helped with thinking outside the box when you take photos. Feel free to check out my
Flickr account or follow my photos on my website
http://kgwebmedia.com
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