Photographers who consistently capture good, storytelling images for the yearbook do so in part because, like great journalistic writers, they rely on the strategies of great reporting.
Getting caught up in sports action is fine for fans, but editors need to look beyond the contact sheet frames showing action on the field. When the game-winning play fails to score or a key player is out of a big game, it is the easily overlooked sideline image that often tells the story best.
A photo can tell several stories, depending on how it is cropped. Leaving this photo full-frame shows the three runners who are leading the pack of bunched-up runners farther back.
Motivate your photographers by supplying them with the necessary tools to assist them in creating memorable visual images.
Basketball tends to be a difficult sport to shoot because it is played in a gymnasium. Most high school gymnasiums are not well lit, thus it is very difficult to get a shutter speed high enough to capture the action unless you use a very high ISO film (3200).
Volleyball is one of the easier sports to photograph for most scholastic photojournalists if they know the correct shooting positions and have access to the proper lenses. The court size is fairly small compared to playing areas of other sports. Since it is played indoors, however, lighting problems may still occur. Using fast films will help. So will using lenses with large aperture openings (F4, F3.5, F2, etc.). While some photographers may use flash, it can be quite bothersome to players while they’re concentrating on their next move.
Tennis is one of the most interesting sports to shoot but it can become the most frustrating as well if you’re limited in your shooting positions. During matches, photographers are usually not permitted to shoot within the fence unless it is from a court that is not being used. Most student photographers do not have the access professional photographers have at court side; drool over those wonderful Wimbledon and U.S. Open photos in Sports Illustrated but be realistic about what you can capture based on your access to the court while a match is underway.
Most of the action takes place at known points-the bases and the batter’s box-but distances are great, and a 300mm or 400mm telephoto is usually necessary. Flood-lit games at night are common, and call for high-speed film and ideally, a wide-maximum aperture. One of the classic baseball shots is of a player sliding into a base in a cloud of dust. This is best caught with a ground-level position. Pre-focusing on the base may help.
Sports photography is different than candid photography Photographers need to keep in mind certain guidelines: Shots, photo ranges, techniques, lens and sports, and films.
Photographers and staffers should understand how to use the four basic types of photographs that appear in yearbooks.
Photographs continue to occupy from 60-70 percent of the space on most spreads of an average yearbook; that is too large of a percentage of space not to consider very critically.