Mide School Wrestling Pics - C&C PLease

DreadnoteDreadnote Registered Users Posts: 634 Major grins
edited January 19, 2012 in People
So here is a little of the back story...

The guy responsible for making the yearbook at our school site feels that the gym, which is about 100 yards away from his classroom, is too far to walk to be troubled to show up and take pictures of our sporting events (got to love tenure). So with the wrestling season nearly over and with no more home games, our wrestling team has no photos of anything that they accomplished this year apart from some that I have been taking on the side. This year was a tough time for them as they lost most of their varsity team to low grades, and what was left of the team was very inexperienced. So, the wrestling coach asked me if I would take some photos of the individual wrestlers so he could have something to give them at the season ending banquet dinner. I told him sure, I'd be happy to. The only problem was that there was about 15-20 minutes to photograph 25 wrestlers, so as you might imagine it was more of an assembly line than art studio. Anyway, I attempted to give the wrestlers a bit of a tougher look since they lost most of their matches this season and I thought it might cheer em up.

So the question I have for you all is - does it work? or is it just too silly? :dunno

Let me know what you think if you would be so kind.

i-CQmqprN-XL.jpg
Sports, Dance, Portraits, Events... www.jasonhowardking.com

Comments

  • D3SshooterD3Sshooter Registered Users Posts: 1,187 Major grins
    edited November 23, 2011
    I would say very well done. It comes out very well. I would remove the front ring of fire. The back one is ok.
    A photographer without a style, is like a pub without beer
  • DreadnoteDreadnote Registered Users Posts: 634 Major grins
    edited November 23, 2011
    D3Sshooter wrote: »
    I would say very well done. It comes out very well. I would remove the front ring of fire. The back one is ok.


    Hadn't thought about that....Ill give it a try. Thanks.
    Sports, Dance, Portraits, Events... www.jasonhowardking.com
  • angevin1angevin1 Registered Users Posts: 3,403 Major grins
    edited November 23, 2011
    D3Sshooter wrote: »
    I would say very well done. It comes out very well. I would remove the front ring of fire. The back one is ok.


    Man! Thats Slick! And yes, remove the front of the ring, so the viewer is in the ring...and in trouble!
    tom wise
  • HackboneHackbone Registered Users Posts: 4,027 Major grins
    edited November 23, 2011
    Very nice, exposure might be a little too hot for my taste.
  • BrettDeutschBrettDeutsch Registered Users Posts: 365 Major grins
    edited November 23, 2011
    No such thing as too silly for a middle school boy (or for me, for that matter). So, yes it is cheesy and silly. And yes, it does work and they'll love it.
  • cmkultradomecmkultradome Registered Users Posts: 516 Major grins
    edited November 23, 2011
    I love it. I showed it to my son who is a wrestler and he thought it was awesome!

    Stephanie
  • HackboneHackbone Registered Users Posts: 4,027 Major grins
    edited November 23, 2011
    Question, where did you get the fire ring?
  • kitkoskitkos Registered Users Posts: 63 Big grins
    edited November 23, 2011
    I like the full ring of fire. could you move the whole ring a little more forward so he is in the ring more?
    I just got asked to shoot the wrestling team at our school.
  • DreadnoteDreadnote Registered Users Posts: 634 Major grins
    edited November 23, 2011
    Thanks a million for the input guys! bowdown.gif I'm still working on a way to ditch the front ring. Ill post it up when i figure it out.

    Hackbone wrote: »
    Question, where did you get the fire ring?

    The ring is a white ring from one of the team's practice mats in the gym which is where the shots were taken. I set it on fire by adding several layer effects and then pulling in some shots of open flames. Same idea with the cracked ground.

    The fire tutorial is found here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vux1Oe8oWo and although it is a CS5 tutorial, I had no problem following it with CS4.

    The tutorial deals with setting text on fire, but it seems to work with most things if you play with it a bit.

    Here is the original photo before I started messing around with it.

    i-QNjPDxq-XL.jpg

    and here is another incarnation of the shot. I moved on to the fire ring idea after my wife said that this one had a bit too much of a WWF feel to it.

    i-w6J7xrm-XL.jpg
    Sports, Dance, Portraits, Events... www.jasonhowardking.com
  • jpcjpc Registered Users Posts: 840 Major grins
    edited November 23, 2011
    Great lighting. Hard light is perfect for shots like this.
  • DreadnoteDreadnote Registered Users Posts: 634 Major grins
    edited November 23, 2011
    OK I pulled out the front fire ring and burned in his hot side about .75 stops. Better or worse?

    i-KMwPkts-XL.jpg
    Sports, Dance, Portraits, Events... www.jasonhowardking.com
  • MacushlaMacushla Registered Users Posts: 347 Major grins
    edited January 18, 2012
    Wow, this photo is amazing. I love the final one. I would love to do something similar for my boys.
  • sweet carolinesweet caroline Registered Users Posts: 1,589 Major grins
    edited January 18, 2012
    Love your final version!

    I don't know the whole situation, but as a photography/yearbook teacher I get asked to shoot EVERYTHING at the school. It's actually not part of my job. I do not get paid any extra to do it. I try to get as much as possible for the yearbook, but sometimes I am just absolutely too busy, especially for the editing work. Or even just archiving the files! I spend at least as many hours each week outside the classroom just prepping lessons/equipment and uploading as I do actually teaching. And then there are the non-school related shoots on evenings and weekends. It's possible that your guy may be a slacker, but you also may not realize everything he's doing behind the scenes. Even with me at almost all events, and student photographers, we still have to ask parents to send in pics to finish off the yearbook.
  • Ed911Ed911 Registered Users Posts: 1,306 Major grins
    edited January 18, 2012
    Nice shot...and extra nice special effects.

    You might want to check focus...it looks like your camera focused on his outfit instead of his face...look at the QV and then at his eyes....

    At least that's the way it appears to me.
    Remember, no one may want you to take pictures, but they all want to see them.
    Educate yourself like you'll live forever and live like you'll die tomorrow.

    Ed
  • DreadnoteDreadnote Registered Users Posts: 634 Major grins
    edited January 18, 2012
    Love your final version!

    I don't know the whole situation, but as a photography/yearbook teacher I get asked to shoot EVERYTHING at the school. It's actually not part of my job. I do not get paid any extra to do it. I try to get as much as possible for the yearbook, but sometimes I am just absolutely too busy, especially for the editing work. Or even just archiving the files! I spend at least as many hours each week outside the classroom just prepping lessons/equipment and uploading as I do actually teaching. And then there are the non-school related shoots on evenings and weekends. It's possible that your guy may be a slacker, but you also may not realize everything he's doing behind the scenes. Even with me at almost all events, and student photographers, we still have to ask parents to send in pics to finish off the yearbook.


    Don't take my initial comments to be an indictment of yearbook teachers in general. I'm sure that most do their job admirably, however, I've spent time in and around this individuals classroom and your label of "slacker" only gets you about 1/4 of the way to where this guy is. To make it worse he gets paid a stipend of $6000/year to do the yearbook. So anyway, enough said about that. I'm just glad I was able to get some pictures of the boys. As it turns out the parents seemed to love the pictures so I printed them at 8x10 and put them in some inexpensive frames and made them available to the parents who scooped them all up. So I was happy. thumb.gif
    Sports, Dance, Portraits, Events... www.jasonhowardking.com
  • DreadnoteDreadnote Registered Users Posts: 634 Major grins
    edited January 18, 2012
    Ed911 wrote: »
    Nice shot...and extra nice special effects.

    You might want to check focus...it looks like your camera focused on his outfit instead of his face...look at the QV and then at his eyes....

    At least that's the way it appears to me.

    Your right, the eyes are a bit soft on this one. But given the time constraints, I didn't take much time to check the images as I was taking them. Next time I'm going to use the eye-fi / iPad combo so as to get a bigger picture to check as I go and hopefully get better results.
    Sports, Dance, Portraits, Events... www.jasonhowardking.com
  • MacushlaMacushla Registered Users Posts: 347 Major grins
    edited January 19, 2012
    I attempted something like this last night, it was a hot mess. I have got to get better with photoshop. Do you do any sports posters? I'd imagine the parents would love those also. I wish there was a professional photog in my area so I wouldn't have to try this stuff myself. My sports photography is not great ether. Wrestling photography is the bane of my existence. :cry
  • DreadnoteDreadnote Registered Users Posts: 634 Major grins
    edited January 19, 2012
    Macushla wrote: »
    I attempted something like this last night, it was a hot mess. I have got to get better with photoshop. Do you do any sports posters? I'd imagine the parents would love those also. I wish there was a professional photog in my area so I wouldn't have to try this stuff myself. My sports photography is not great ether. Wrestling photography is the bane of my existence. :cry

    I haven't done any posters yet, but basketball season in our middle school league starts at the end of the month with a pre-season tournament, so I'm going to give it a crack and see what happens. My only reservation is with choosing the right size. I imagine 20x30. I guess that is a normal "poster size".
    Sports, Dance, Portraits, Events... www.jasonhowardking.com
Sign In or Register to comment.