I was super excited and a little bit nervous the first night I shot. Not super nervous. The excitement definitely outweighed the nervousness, but I couldn't help but worry about how well I would do when taking the pictures. My mind starts racing. Will my settings be okay? Will they all be in focus? Will I be back far enough? Will I be close enough? How will I get them to give me a nice smile? What if they don't smile? Oh, it just goes on and on. It's amazing I don't lose my mind with all of the thinking and worrying that I do. I know it's perfectly normal to think about these things so I took a deep breath and just starting shooting. Honestly, after the first few children I was able to relax and enjoy it. They were all so cute! So, I was just taking lots and lots of pictures. My settings seemed fine. Most of the children were giving my nice, big smiles. I was checking my pictures and they all seemed to be in focus. Huh! This isn't so bad.
Yeah, then it got a little crazy. A couple of children showed up a little late, I couldn't get one child to cooperate so I could get a good picture, and then I had one child who just looked absolutely thrilled (I am being sarcastic in case you were wondering) to have their picture taken. Oh. And it really showed on their face. So, now I am running a little behind schedule and I think one of the coaches is a little irritated about that. Ohhhh...no. I start to panic a little because I am running behind and I just know that I didn't get any great shots of the last two children I shot. And I really tried. I took LOTS of pictures. I felt awful. But I had to keep going and just move on. I had no time to dwell on the last two children when I had a line of children from the next team who were so patiently waiting for me to take their pictures. So, move on I did.
The rest of the evening went fine, and we finished just a little bit over the original time were supposed to finish. I thought that was pretty good for my very first time. I couldn't wait to check out my pictures on the computer!
I got home and loaded them up. I started looking through them and some of them were really cute! I thought, "I did pretty good!" And then it happened. I always take more than just a couple of pictures. One might be out of focus. The child might close their eyes at the last second, or they might look away. Things happen. Well, I am looking at one particular child's pictures and I am flipping through to pick out the best one, and I run out. The first one was out of focus. The second one was really cute, but (oh my gosh!!) I think I cut the tip of his foot off when I took the picture. I somehow had scooted up an inch or so. Then I look at the next one and he is looking down instead of at my camera. I look at the last one, and it's really out of focus. How did that even happen? How could I not notice I was too close?! I start flipping through the rest of them, and I did it a few times. As I sorted through and selected the best ones to be edited though, I realized it wasn't as bad as I thought when I first skimmed through. Thank goodness!!! I was really starting to panic. Danielle was about to get a phone call from a crazy person babbling about cutting off toes and blurry faces. I did tell her about it the next day and she looked at me and said, "don't worry. I'm sure they are fine!" What would I do without her? She always makes me feel better.
Now I am drowning in pictures that I need to edit so I can order the prints. We don't do a whole lot of editing with the sports pictures, but we do want to make sure they look really nice, and can I just say.......I really DO NOT LIKE taking pictures in the raquetball courts. I would most definitely rather be shooting outside. The lighting inside is not that great and I am still learning how to shoot indoors with artificial lighting. We do use the studio lighting and that helps a lot. I do like the way my pictures turned out and everyone looks fine, but it is just a lot easier for sure to shoot outdoors.
So, now that I am done shooting and I have started editing, I'm getting excited about placing my very first official print order! I can't wait!! Here is one of the pictures I have edited.
Let me know what you think of my first try at taking sports pictures. I had such a great time doing it and hope I get the opportunity to take some of the other sports pictures this year.
I feel extremely grateful to have been a part of such a fun shoot!
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