Soccer portrait pose and lighting questions

jfriend

I've been the soccer team "action" photographer for a couple years and gotten pretty decent at capturing the action on the field. Now I've been asked to take the individual and team pictures this year instead of going with the league organized canned picture day which never seems to turn out that well.

So, I'm looking for some advice on lighting and poses. I've done some indoor portraits with rented softboxes before, but that seems a little overkill for this and this will be an outdoor venue without access to power.

The scene will be late afternoon and I can pick shade or sun (probably pick shade depending upon backgrounds). I own a single SB-800 and flash bracket (for use with my D300). I could rent a second one easily.

Any good pointers on good poses for individual shots with a soccer ball as a prop?

Any suggestions on what I should do for lighting beyond my single flash?

jeffreaux2

Well lets hope I steer you right...

You have a nice selection of gear to choose from. Luckily action photography has led you in a good direction there.

Lens
I would suggest you use your 17-55mmF2.8, but being sure that you are using it in the 50-55mm range. My second choice would be the 70-200, but keeping toward the wide end of that lens.

Light
There really should be no need for a second light. If you can find a location with a nice background in open shade (no direct sunlight) you can use the flash on your bracket for simple fill. Using a single flash with the 17-55 should work well. Using it with one of your longer lenses may not work as well simply because of having to drive the flash hard enough to reach the subject(in daylight).

Either way, let the natural light be the key light. Dial that flash power back so as not to introduce shadows....and all should be well.

For posing, I would have a look at other photographers poses of soccer players and choose a few that you think work well.

sweet caroline

I used to play soccer when I was a kid. The classic pose is down on one knee, the other knee up, with the soccer ball either held against the side with one arm or on the ground, and hands on the knee that's up. Another would be standing with the ball held in one arm at the side and the other hand on the hip.

I'll be shooting karate student portraits in a few weeks at a botanical garden with plenty of shady spots. I'll be using my D300, 50mm 1.8 lens, and my sb600 off camera in a Softliter II.

Caroline

erson83

you could have the player layin on their stomach at an angle with knees bent, (feet up) and the ball would be held between their feet..my wife has one from high school like that that look nice

Ann McRae

Boys, girls, both? ages? Many teams at the same time or one team with lots of time to work and personalities that you know?

I've been trying to find a thread with several great suggestions in it. but today search isn't my friend...I can't remember specific enough things to search well for it.

I'll keep looking.

ann



Found It

jfriend wrote:

I've been the soccer team "action" photographer for a couple years and gotten pretty decent at capturing the action on the field. Now I've been asked to take the individual and team pictures this year instead of going with the league organized canned picture day which never seems to turn out that well.

So, I'm looking for some advice on lighting and poses. I've done some indoor portraits with rented softboxes before, but that seems a little overkill for this and this will be an outdoor venue without access to power.

The scene will be late afternoon and I can pick shade or sun (probably pick shade depending upon backgrounds). I own a single SB-800 and flash bracket (for use with my D300). I could rent a second one easily.

Any good pointers on good poses for individual shots with a soccer ball as a prop?

Any suggestions on what I should do for lighting beyond my single flash?

jfriend

Ann McRae wrote:

Boys, girls, both? ages? Many teams at the same time or one team with lots of time to work and personalities that you know?

I've been trying to find a thread with several great suggestions in it. but today search isn't my friend...I can't remember specific enough things to search well for it.

I'll keep looking.

ann

Found It

Very helpful thread. Thanks Ann - I'll look at that in some more detail. It's 11 year old girls. One team. I know them all (some better than others). I can take as much time as their patience will allow.

Ann McRae

jfriend wrote:

Very helpful thread. Thanks Ann - I'll look at that in some more detail. It's 11 year old girls. One team. I know them all (some better than others). I can take as much time as their patience will allow.

Perfect opportunity to do new things, then. Not the standard knee down, ball on knee. I'd look for trees or other things that they might climb or peek around, I really like the poses with the girls lying, ball in feet but that may be too 'old' or suggestive for 11 year olds.

I say have fun, and take your lead from them. Start with the most adventurous, and see where it goes!

I had a group of 15 yr old girls, not the most skilled ones, want action shots last summer. That was a challenge, because not one could find the ball without looking down for it.

Anyway, I prefer shooting a team at a time, and getting fun results rather than the stock stuff.

ann

Mitchell

John,
I do these every year for my daughter's team. A single flash on a bracket will be perfect. Just find a shady spot and take your single player portraits. Best to do your team photo early in the morning.

I usually make a memory mate for each player. This was my daughter's U11 team.




Posing is not my forte. I usually just have them kneel with the ball angled slightly. I like to shoot from above to get a nice patch of grass as the background. This avoids any distracting background elements.



Hope this helps. Good luck.

anwmn1

Hey that linked thread was mine.

I suggest taking a step stool or small ladder with you to get a different perspective. If you know the girls you can probably have a lot of fun. The girls I shot were older and I didn't know them so most of them were quite shy at first.

I suggest bringing your flash for fill as you will need it as it gets closer to sunset.

The goal can work well as a back ground but be aware of houses, trees, and cars.

Have fun!!

mike_k

Mitchell wrote:

Posing is not my forte. I usually just have them kneel with the ball angled slightly. I like to shoot from above to get a nice patch of grass as the background. This avoids any distracting background elements.

I love this idea! Hadn't thought about doing this before.

jfriend

I just thought I'd follow up with folks and let you know how this turned out. The shoot was yesterday afternoon. The weather was threatening rain and very dark clouds (it actually started raining right after I finished the shoot - I got soaked running my gear back to the car).

After spending some time planning, I decided to take four quick poses of each girl. I had only one hour to shoot the whole team before a game so I had to go in less than four minutes per girl:

1. The traditional shot on one knee holding a ball - shot from close to eye level with greenery in the background.
2. The same shot, but as a closeup that just got the upper body
3. Turn 90 degrees and take a shot of the same pose, but shot from a little above that only has a clean spot of grass in the background
4. A head and shoulders shot looking out from behind a tree (this was a "fun" experiment)

I used my D2Xs, 17-55 and SB-800 flash with diffuser dome on a flash bracket on the camera. ISO 100. Manual exposure and I'd set the manual exposure with occasional spot metering off the face. Most exposures were around 1/125th and f/5.6. The SB-800 was set to -2/3 exposure compensation. I had rented a 52" diffuser that I might have needed if the sun was out, but there was no sun so I didn't need it.

Overall things came out reasaonbly well, the parents seem more than pleased and I think the photos are quite a bit better than the ones last year done by a pro. But, I did learn a lot of things that I could do better next time and if I took them again tomorrow, I'd do a bunch of things better. I guess that's why experience helps.

Here are some of my learnings for next time:

• Make sure you have a good smile on at least a couple shots of each girl. There were a few girls that just never gave me a realistic smile. I was working on this as I went, but could have done better on a couple of the girls.
• Before your first shot with each person, run through a mental checklist to see that everything is ready: hair looks good, shirt tucked in, no flyaway hairs or hair in the face, socks and shinguards in place, etc... I started out doing this, but didn't keep it up as things got hectic trying to get them all done.
• Make sure the flash is exposing low enough that you aren't getting "flash shine" on their faces. I probably really need to learn more about controlling the flash power. I thought that -2/3 EV in TTL mode with the diffuser dome would keep it from shining, but there were several shots where you can see some shine in some of the shots.
• Don't forget to flip the flash bracket to the right position when you rotate the camera. I forgot on a few photos. Probably nobody else will notice, but I can see slight shadows on the ground in a couple shots that shouldn't be there if the bracket was in the right position.
• Move back further for the group shot. Because I was concerned about the flash distance, I shot the group shot fairly wide (at 22mm) and the 17-55 shots some distortion of the outer people and really doesn't have very good depth of field characteristics at the edges. I should have backed up to 45mm and taken the dome off the flash. f/5.6 and 22mm should have been plenty of depth of field by the book, but the 17-55 has enough field curvature at the edges that the outer folks are not as sharp as they should be.
• Work more on the posing and composition and backgrounds.
• I tend to like the shots with body turned at an angle with the subject looking at me better than the ones with the body facing straight at me. I started out setting it up this way, but didn't keep doing it for everyone.

And here are some representative poses:

J Allen

Great Post! Thanks for taking the time to follow-up with your experiences, I know I'll be keeping these tips for future reference!

Andy

jfriend wrote:

Any good pointers on good poses for individual shots with a soccer ball as a prop?

1 flsh is fine, just use it for really light fill if you must, and to get a catchlight.

S4per

Andy wrote:

1 flsh is fine, just use it for really light fill if you must, and to get a catchlight.

but alas, that's blasphemy..any self respecting soccer player knows one should never sit on the ball! ;-)

good captures, though :-)