Trade Secrets: Perfect Panning

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|| SportsShooter.com: News Item: Posted 2005-10-18

Trade Secrets: Perfect Panning
Peter Lockley's photo from a women's lacrosse game is the eighth in a series of SportsShooter.com features called "Trade Secrets."

By Peter Lockley

Photo by Peter Lockley

This wonderful panning image was recorded at 1/20th of a second.

When I was hired at the Washington Times in March, my bosses complimented my ability to find unique images at common sporting events as the thing that set my portfolio apart from the other applicants. Anyone who has ever stood on a sideline with a pack of photographers, all using the same auto focus, motor drives, and lenses, knows that this can be a challenge. It can be especially difficult when you have an editor expecting a photo of that key play or specific player. Yes, it is your job to give them what they are looking for, but in a market so saturated with routine sports photography, it is becoming more and more important to find a way to stand out from the crowd. My goal with this image was to do just that.

I was attending the Rich Clarkson Sports Photography Workshop in Colorado Springs, with some of my friends and former classmates from the University of Colorado. The student body consisted of about 50 photographers, including SportsShooter.com members Chip Litherland, Suzy Allman, and Josh Merwin, among others. It was a great learning environment, but with so many photographers in the same place at the same time, creating a unique photo would be a challenge.

With most of the workshop students seeking pictures at the Olympic Training Center, a few of us decided to go out feature hunting, to see what we could find. We came across a park, just a few miles away from the workshop hotel, where we were lucky enough to stumble upon a youth women's lacrosse game. The girls were all wearing bright pink or blue jerseys, and the clouded sky cast a nice even light across the field.

I was immediately intrigued. Instructors at the workshop often stress the importance of a clean background in a sports photo. Chip Litherland also talks about finding a background first, and then letting the photo happen within that space. As luck would have it, the western sideline of the field bordered a tall grassy slope.

So with a clean background and an exciting subject, my focus turned to making an interesting image. With several other photographers shooting the same subject, I wanted to make my image unique, so I decided to slow down the shutter speed and experiment a little bit. I noticed that most of the action in the game happened near the goals, on one end of the field or the other. When I say action, I am referring to stick checking, contact, shots on goal, etc... I also noticed that after a turnover, the players would run with a consistent speed and direction while bringing the ball across the center of the field. This gave me the idea to pan with the subject. I played with shutter speeds, each time checking on the back of the camera, and settled on 1/20th second. I wouldn't say that's the magic number for panning, but it looked good in this situation, so I stuck with it.

After creating a few pans of single players, I was fortunate to find these two girls running in stride. As they crossed midfield, I fired off several frames on my motor drive. When panning with a slow shutter speed, I find that using the motor drive increases your odds for getting a sharp subject (I also use a 70-200mm lens with 'image stabilization').

At the end of our feature hunt, I knew I had something, because I was eager to edit, but wasn't really excited until I pulled this frame up on the computer. This image stood out above the rest because of the repetition in the shape of the two girls' strides. The red shorts, the yellow stick, and the yellow ball were also nice touches, but most of all, I was happy to see sharp faces in a clean frame.

The photo went over well with the staff at the workshop, and sure enough, it stood out from the rest of the work from that day. I was happy with the result, and still try to apply this kind of thinking to every assignment I shoot, even if I have to get the standard photo first.

Peter Lockley is a staff photographer for the Washington Times in Washington, D.C.

"Trade Secrets" is a series of educational features where SportsShooter.com members reveal the inside-information about how they were able to create a specific image (or two.) To nominate an image for this feature, please send a message to the SportsShooter.com admin staff here: http://www.sportsshooter.com/contactus.html The SportsShooter.com admin staff reserves the right to accept, or not accept, any nomination.

Related Links:

Lockley's member page