Take Better Youth Baseball and Softball Pictures

This is a rough transcript of the presentation, “Play Ball; Improving Your Youth Baseball and Softball Photography” that I’ve given several times over the years. It is better in person, but the concepts hold true online. While this was originally posted as a summary for the students in the class, to my surprise it has been viewed thousands of times around the world in recent years. This material is aimed at parents and team photographers who have some experience taking baseball and softball pictures but want to take their work to the next level — from being a button pusher to creating compelling and interesting of athletes playing America’s pastime.

While I am not a full-time photographer, my sports pictures have been used on everything from the baseball cards of MLB Cy Young and MVP winners to highway billboards and everything in between. None of that matters. My best picture is the one I haven’t taken yet — and my goal is to help you take better pictures of your “all-star.” So, let’s lace up those cleats and head onto the field …

For sake of this presentation, I will assume you are fluent with your camera settings and the exposure triangle; in short, the absolute basics of taking pictures with an interchangeable lens camera. This class is not about how to use a camera. It’s about using the camera to take baseball pictures.

If you don’t yet understand exposure or know your camera settings, you need to build that foundation — put in the work. It’s not rocket science, but there are no shortcuts. It’s like learning to drive a car. You can read about it until your eyes get tired, but you need to get behind the wheel. No matter how much you paid for your camera, it’s just an overpriced paperweight until you learn how to use it. The tips below will help you take better baseball pictures, but without that solid base, much of the material below will be of limited practical use.

If you have made the decision to take pictures at your athlete’s baseball or softball games you may find yourself at 100-plus games before high school graduation. Invest the time in practicing and learning to do it well. Hold yourself to the same standards of practice, continuous improvement, and personal excellence as you do your athlete. Spot your fastball. Level out that swing. The better you get, the more fun it will be. But you’ve got to put in the time on education and practice.

Originally, I thought I was being clever and wrote nine tips, reflecting the sport’s nine innings. But based on feedback and questions, we went into extra innings. So below you will 11 tips in no particular order.

1.   It’s All About the Background

This is purposely tip number one because it is the most transformational, important and overlooked.

Repeat these words out loud: The single most important thing I can do to improve my baseball pictures is to choose the right background. Choose your background first and let the play enter your frame. Most people do the opposite. Most people are wrong. You do not take a picture. Your job is to make a picture. That’s a very different thing, indeed.

As the photographer/artist, you are responsible for every element inside of that frame. What you leave out is often as important as what is shown.

Now please raise your right hand and repeat after me: I (fill in your name) will strive mightily to never take another baseball picture that features a car, a spectator in a folding chair, a porta-potty, a bus, a shade tent, or a power line in the background.”

Doing so is simple.

Just move! Or just move your camera.

It’s rare to find a photographer whose shoes have literally been nailed to the ground. But you would often think that is the case. Most bad pictures are just lazy photos. Try this exercise. Walk to the field as you normally would to take a picture of a player. Do what you always do. Snap. Now take that same picture but do so five steps to your right. Now take the same picture while kneeling. Next, go around to the other side of the player and do the same. Compare the pictures. You will notice that a few feet will make a dramatic difference. The cell phone tower that was coming out of the pitcher’s head is no longer there. When you knelt, the parking lot full of cars in the background suddenly disappeared. Pretty cool and very easy. Remember backgrounds first! When I am shooting a pitcher from the third-base side, I may move 5-7 times to find the right background. Sometimes it’s literally 6 inches to the right. Sometimes it’s six feet to the left. But it matters. Mightily.

You may be familiar with the American painter Edward Hopper. His most famous painting — a true American classic — is Nighthawks. Many of Hopper’s works are set in the city but look closely at Nighthawks. You won’t see many (or any) power lines, phone booths, lamp posts, newspaper boxes, or other distracting totems of modernity. The artist sought to create a simple, rural feeling in the city. It’s subtle. But it’s what gives his paintings their quiet power. He made a conscious decision to leave things out, forcing you to focus on the subject. Strive for that level of control.

We can step out of the art gallery now and back onto the field, but you get my point? This is where photography is about more than just pushing a button. It’s about having an idea of what you want to capture — sometimes stumbling, but never quitting — in the pursuit.

With all of that in mind (whew!), once you find your clean background, kneel there awhile. Look through your viewfinder. Check your angles. Find the ideal spot. Let the action move into your background ... and then take the picture. Be patient! Let the picture come to you. 

And remember. If you learn nothing else from this presentation, it it be this: Background first. Patience. Subject. Snap. 

2.   Slay the Metal Dragon: Defeating the Fence

Ah, the metal dragon – the foe of every baseball photographer. It needn’t be that way. Through the magic of optics, you can defeat the dragon by simply making it disappear. Just put your longest lens right up against the fence centered on a hole. You’ll want to take your lens hood off for this. The glass needs to be as close to the metal as possible. Set your aperture as wide as possible. The longer the lens and lower the aperture number, the more thoroughly the fence will disappear. You may see some artifacts, but the fence will essentially be gone if you are at f/2.8 or even f/4 and at 200MM or higher.

While this is strong magic, there is an even better way to get rid of the fence and it’s 100% effective: get inside it. As a team photographer, you may have the opportunity to shoot from the bench. The vast majority of coaches are comfortable with having a parent (the silent, well-behaved type) at the end of the bench for a few innings a game. Your goal here is absolute invisibility. Depending on the league you may even be able to venture behind first or third base with the support of the coach and umpire. This tends to be more common in pre-high school play but take advantage of it when you can.

Make friends with the umpires. Take their pictures during games and text them a copy. Get them a bottle of water on a hot day. Be kind. They work very hard. And they can make or break your field access. Generally, people don’t umpire to pad their nest eggs. They do it because they love the game. Respect that commitment to our kids.

Also, don’t overlook pregame and between innings warmups as a great opportunity to get pictures of players. You can spend a full game and not get a good picture of a second baseman or centerfielder flashing their glovework. During warm-ups or between innings you can’t miss.

3.   Here Comes the Sun: Dealing with Shadows

Truism: The best weather to watch a baseball game is the worst weather to shoot one.

Fences are problematic – but defeatable. You can minimize bad backgrounds. The sun, however, is 4.5 billion years old and remains undefeated. How’s that for a streak Cal Ripken? Shadows created by a high sun on a cloudless day will create deep blacks under hat brims obscuring the player’s faces. Shadows will crawl into the folds of uniforms. They will bounce off of white jerseys and render black jerseys as dark grey. Photographically speaking, a high sun in a cloudless sky is a wrecking ball. And there’s not a darn thing you can do about it. There are a few things you can do that might help … at least a little:

• Most major camera manufacturers have a setting that optimizes high-contrast images to restore details lost in the shadows. Canon calls this ALO, Sony DRO, and Nikon, Active-D. These help a little. For these sunny day games, set it on high. Every little bit helps.

• Consider shooting the game in black and white. Those deep shadows that work against you in color can work in your favor in monochrome.  Some of the best baseball pictures ever were shot before the advent of color film. . All modern DSLR cameras have a monochrome mode in the menu. Try it. Caution: Avoid mixing black and white and color pictures in a gallery. It’s like wearing hiking boots with a wedding dress. Pick a style and stay with it.

• The most extreme measure to beat the sun is simply not shooting. In all likelihood, you have a dozen or more games a year. You don’t need to shoot them all. Think of a “Sun Game” as the photographic equivalent of a “Rain Game.” It’s your camera and your time. Only you can decide if it’s the best option. It is not unusual at all for photographers to keep their cameras in the bag and wait for good lighting. Landscape photographers do 99.9% of their work in the two hours immediately before sunrise and after sunset. You are in control.

• If you are required to shoot a game in harsh sunlight, approach it differently. You may choose to focus on portraits of the players on the bench, details, activities around the park that are in the shade etc … in other words, make the best of your situation.

4. Vary Your Position

Many — ok most — of the plays we see in baseball are common and repeatable. The pitch. The swing. The catch. The throw. The slide. Good pictures are not just about showing different things. Sometimes they are about showing common things differently.

The great Japanese artist Hokusai is most famous for his series of prints, 36 Views of Mount Fuji. Although executed in the 18th Century they are a case study in how to look at things differently. Look at his work. Now think about how you are going to shoot the catcher next game? Is there a different way to shoot the batters? Push yourself.

Keeping our background rules top of mind, it is important to provide different perspectives to your viewers – perspectives that they don’t have access to from the bleachers.

Here’s a primer on positioning that may come in handy. But remember, even as you position yourself, the background is the King. Always try to find the cleanest background possible. 

As a rule of thumb, no one wants to see a batter’s or pitcher’s back. Just don’t take those pictures. Unless you are doing it in a radically innovative way, it’s a waste of your time and that of the viewer. No eyes no picture. If you want to get quality pictures of all players on the team you will need to put yourself in a position to do so. Here is a handy list of where to get good pictures based on your location around the field.

First Base Line

·       Right-handed batter

·       Left-handed pitcher

·       On occasion, left-handed batters follow-through

·       Fielding photos of the shortstop and the third baseman

·       A head-on view of the double play throw to first

·       A runner’s dive back into first base

·       The catcher throwing to second base

·       A good view of the runner scoring from third

·       The batter running to first

Third Base Line

·       Right-handed pitcher

·       Left-handed batter

·       On occasion, right-handed batters follow-through

·       1st and 2nd base fielding

·       1st baseman fielding throws at first

·       Double plays and steals at second base

·       A good view of the catcher during a play at the plate

·       A good view of the home-plate celebration after a home run

Behind the Plate

·       A classic view of the pitcher head on

·       Fielding plays by the infield

·       Plays at the plate

You’ll be shooting through the fence for these behind the plate pictures. Refer to the advice for doing so above.

These are just a few possibilities for each position. Finding new places to make photos from each game is part of the fun and each field will provide different opportunities and challenges.

4.   Baseball as a Three-Act Play

Sports is drama. So why not approach an event this way?

In the 4th Century, dramatists developed the concept of the three-act play. You can do the same with a baseball game. The Set-Up (Arrival, Warm-Ups), The Confrontation (The Game Itself), and The Resolution (End of Game, Jubilation, Dejection, Departure). Approaching it this way somehow just feels more manageable and under control.

Know that Set-Up is the best time to take detail pictures and athlete portraits; they haven’t started to sweat yet. Know where you need to be and what you want to do (and of course, your background) for the game itself. And finally what are your plans for the end of the game. Don’t think for a minute that when the last out is recorded that it’s over. The drama is far from over — the curtain has not been drawn. Players congratulating or consoling each other after a game may very well be the best pictures you make all day. Don’t put your camera away until you are back in the car. You never know when great photo opportunities will emerge.

5.   Think of the Season, Not the Game

If you take the same equipment, lens, and mental approach to each game, you will end up with essentially the same pictures every time. Like the players and coaches, approach each game with a specific strategy. One game, shoot tighter. Next time, shoot wider. The third game, shoot the details. Next, make portraits of the players. At the end of the season, you will have a varied and dynamic portfolio of pictures and you will be building your skills along the way.

Frankly, you only need a few (5-7) good pictures per player, per year. Most people dramatically overshoot. Show only your best work. A good goal is to share 20-30 pictures per game. Trust me, there has never been youth baseball or softball game that yielded more than 100 quality pictures. I’m a little above average at this and I rarely show more than 50. If I see a gallery of 100-plus pictures online, I just don’t open it. It’s not photography. It’s a card dump. Ultimately, people will evaluate your skill based on what you publish. They don’t see what you throw out. Only show the work you are proud of.

If you have a good rapport with the team's parents, let them know that you may not post a photo of their player each game. Set that expectation early. It is extraordinarily difficult to make a portfolio-worthy picture of all of the players on a single team in one game.

6.   The Athlete is the Hero

You can tell an advanced photographer from a beginner by the way they stand — or should I say, the way they don’t stand. You should rarely shoot standing up. Kneel. Doing so radically changes your angle of view. Players will appear larger and altogether more heroic in the frame. Try it. You’ll immediately notice a vast difference. Also by shooting up you will eliminate a tremendous amount of background clutter; cars, lawn chairs, fences. See Tip #1 above. It’s free magic.

Don’t buy it? Look at the end zone of an NFL game. 99.9% of photographers are kneeling. The other 0.1 are heading to the bathroom. All sports photographers kneel not because they are nice people and want to improve the view of fans behind them. They just know what it takes to make a good picture. It’s expected and its best practice in the profession.

This may go without saying but it bears mentioning. Baseball can be a physically demanding sport. The stress often shows on the faces and sometimes in the actions of the athletes. You will have an opportunity to take many pictures of the players during a season. Avoid showing images that may even unintentionally embarrass the athlete. Be sensitive. Remember, these are kids. The rule among photographers is not to take pictures of injuries of players under the college level. Just put your camera down and clap when the player comes off the field.

7.  Details, Details, Details

When it comes to viewing images, people have very short attention spans. However, you can slow them down. Here’s the trick. Never show three consecutive, similar pictures taken from the exact same angle in the exact same place.

Pop songs typically have a verse-chorus-verse structure that provides a predictable audio roadmap for the listener. It breaks things up and pulls you along at the same time. Make your galleries pop.

Build clear and powerful visual breaks into your gallery. Reset the viewer’s eye with some non-game action. An umpire portrait, fans in the seats, a closeup of a scoreboard, coach pictures … anything indicative of time and place. While you are doing this as a favor to your viewer, you are also expanding your skillset as a photographer.

Remember, a good photographer is foremost a good observer.

This approach builds that skill.

8. This is My Camera …

Every camera brand is different. Every camera model is different. It is your responsibility as a photographer to develop a relationship with your camera in the same way a soldier does his or her rifle. You must know the menus. You must know how to change settings. I’m paraphrasing the military rifle creed dramatically here for artistic purposes but think in these terms:

“This is my camera. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My camera and I know that what counts in photography is not the shots we take. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories…”

Recent improvements in camera technology have led people to believe that it is easy to make good pictures. And for some types of photography, it has become quite easy indeed. This is decidedly not true of sports photography, alas. If you want to take pictures of the quality that most people envision, you need to master your camera. You need to understand the exposure triangle and exposure compensation and you need to practice until it becomes second nature. If you are in the car, the camera should ride shotgun. If you are on vacation, it should be in your hand. If you are picking your athlete up at practice, why not spend time practicing with your camera? If your family does not plead with you to, “put down that %^&*! camera,” you are not shooting enough.

Assuming, then, that you know how to use your DSLR, have an understanding of the exposure triangle, and that you are not shooting on “P” (no, P does not mean professional!) or using the “Running Man” setting. My suggestion is that you shoot in Shutter Priority Mode (S) and that you set your shutter speed to 1,000 on heavy overcast (near rain) games, 2,000 on days when it’s overcast but bright, and 3,000 for those days where it’s very sunny. Go into your settings menu and turn on Auto-ISO. For what it’s worth, those are the general settings I use to photograph baseball— once I have selected my ideal backgrounds, of course!

At some point in your development, you will hear a debate between shooting in RAW format or JPG format. If your camera format is set to RAW, no processing is applied, and therefore the file stores more tonal and color data. With more data stored in the file, there is more processing flexibility than a JPEG can offer. Here's a cooking analogy: a raw file contains the ingredients to make a specific meal. But you need to cook it. JPEG is that same meal already cooked, and there is less flexibility in how you can modify it. People love this debate. But take my word for it, shoot in JPEG until/unless you are an expert in post-processing digital files. Every photo you see on this website was shot in JPEG.

9. It’s All a Little Fuzzy

The most common question I receive from newer photographers is, “How can I blur my backgrounds.” I could write a technical treatise on this topic but I’ll try to keep it simple.

First, set your lens aperture to the lowest number — the lower the number, the more blur it will create. Unfortunately, the lower the number, the higher the cost of the lens. Generally, high-grade professional lenses are f2.8 and lower (f2.0, f1.8, f1.4). At these levels, you can get great “blur” — or Bokeh, which is the correct technical term. Most lenses owned by hobbyists are f4, f5.6, and f6.3. You can still get some blur with these lenses, but you won’t have that “melted” effect. The higher the number, the less blur.

Next - and this is key - you want to get as close as you can to your subject with your background as far away as possible. This is something you can and should practice in your own backyard. It won’t take you long to get a feel for it and it will forever change how you make pictures.

10. Capturing the Thrill of Victory and Agony of Defeat

It’s the bottom of the seventh. The game is tied. There is a runner on third. Your batter slams a single into right field. What do you do?

Most people will instinctively follow the ball or the batter. It’s a powerful instinct.

But that instinct is wrong.

The right move is to immediately begin photographing the bench and moments later the player crossing home plate. The same holds true with a key home run. Shoot the bench. The leaping coaches. The players high fiving. That immediate raw emotion lasts but a few seconds. There’s plenty of time to shoot the hero when he or she heads back to the dugout or crosses the plate.

My library includes several shelves of books about sports photography. When viewed as a whole, one of the striking characteristics of these books is the ratio of action pictures to portraits and images featuring jubilation or dejection; the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat. Great sports photos do not always feature a player hitting a ball out of the park or a slam dunk. Just as often they are pictures that conjure emotion. They are a grandpa rooting on his grandson. A little sister with a handmade sign. An athlete with her head buried in a towel after a hard run. Frankly, I'll take any of those over a technically clean pitching photo anytime. And you can do that with any camera at any time, anywhere. Next time you are at a game, turn away from the diamond and capture what is going on around the park.

A good photographer is, foremost, a good observer. You don't need a fancy camera to build that skill.

11. Have Fun!

To quote the late, great Kurt Vonnegut, “If this isn’t fun, I don’t know what is.” You get to be outdoors. You are with your loved ones and friends. You get to create pictures that people will value for years. What’s not to like about that? Don’t take it too seriously. There is a learning curve. Strive to do just one thing better each time out. Remember two important pieces of advice from the masters. Henri Cartier Bresson, said, “Your first 10,000 pictures are your worst.” And Ansel Adams said, If you make one truly great photo a year, that’s enough.” Take heed. Have fun with this!

Bonus Tip: The Internet is a trove of information for photographers. But there is a lot of bad advice out there as well. If you are interested in sports photography training, I suggest Don McPeak’s $12 course on beginner sports photography.

If you decide this is something that you really want to get into, there is no better training than the Shultz Photo School course, Sports Photography for Parents. It’s about $99 but it pays for itself the first time you approach the field. Trust me on that. https://shultzphotoschool.com/sports-photo-course-2019/