Wanamaker Sports Photography

After a long stint of cold, rainy weather … this day turned out to be perfect. No clouds. No rain. And the temperatures were perfect! We received an Action Photography Request for one of the Minisink Youth Soccer Striker players, Kris Talmadge. For the majority of the game, I setup just behind the goal, keeping the sun to my back, making sure that Kris’ face was well lit as he brought the ball towards me.

Like most soccer games, the ball moved up and down the field quickly and was tough to track at times. Thankfully, the ball was passed to Kris a few times, making my job of grabbing some great action shots of him much easier!

Saturday was a long day for us. It started out with a 3AM wake-up to drive down to Philadelphia for a youth soccer portrait and action event with our partner company Techvantics. After cleaning up, it was a long drive back, a quick stop at the office and then off to a High Point Hawks youth football game against Vernon.

Since this Action Photography Request was for the entire time, we could focus more on the action instead of a specific player. However, #18 for the Hawks was on fire that night. Nearly ever carry for him resulted in a touchdown or a spot close enough for another attempt. After he caught the ball and started his drive down the field, it was hard for Vernon to hold onto him. #12 in the blue and gold made a “flying” attempt, but came up empty handed.

A strong team from the get-go, the Hawks ultimately one the game and have been working towards the playoffs in November. If they make it, we’ll be there to capture their wins!

This was a tough game for Minisink. The Wildcats started off with an early lead that the Warriors would never recover from. For most of the game, they relied heavily on Louie Walther to get the ball down the field and Kyle Cazzetta and a successful 44-yard field goal. The shot above is of Joe Dawson during on of Minisink’s drive’s to the end zone – and yes, he did make the catch!

For this game, we received Action Photography Requests to cover the quarterback for both Middletown and Pine Bush. As the final minutes of practice counted down, I started to become nervous about what the final quality of the images was going to look like. Though the field lighting was perfect, the fact that I was using a 300mm lens and was shooting through a steady downpour made me wonder if the rain was going to give me “dull” looking images. Thankfully, I was able to shoot fast enough with our Canon Mark IV where it didn’t matter how hard it was raining – so now I could stop worrying and start grabbing some great images!

Having to only cover the two quarterbacks made my job easy as all I had to do was figure out what shots I wanted. The image above was captured in the first quarter as #12, Mike Hughes, dropped back for a long pass down the field. The ball was caught and Pine Bush scored their only touchdown of the game – leaving Faller Field defeated by Middletown 21-6.

After covering the first Friday Night Lights game for Eldred, we were asked to come back and photograph the boy’s soccer game against Fallsburg on the new field. It was a perfect night for a soccer game, though the cold of an early winter had already set in. While the guys on the field kept warm from running all over the place, it was tough keeping the blood flowing while on the sidelines.

Any time I photograph soccer, I find that it takes a little time for me to get “into” the game. When covering football, you can almost anticipate where the ball is headed – however, soccer is not the same. One moment the ball can be in front of you and the next it could be at the other end of the field. Finding the right spot on the field is key to getting good images. Usually, I like to camp out behind the goal so I can capture the players coming at me but there are times when you want to position yourself 10 or 20 yards away from the goal so you can capture the players making their way down the field as well as their goal attempts. This was the case for the image above …

I setup about 15 yards down from the goal and kept a sharp eye out for ball as it made it way towards me. Using the 300mm 2.8, I was able to get in nice and close, but there were times when even the 300mm was too short. During this play, #4 for Eldred was making a break for it as two defenders for Fallsburg closed in. As #21 for Fallsburg attempted to steal away the ball, #4 for Eldred collided with him and kept control. This image was the moment after impact as Eldred held control of the ball. Unfortunately, his attempt at a goal was unsuccessful. In the end, Fallsburg walked away with the only point scored in the game.