Timing

Timing is always crucial to photography.  In a lot of news and sports photography, good timing comes down to predicting what your subject will do. People don’t realize how much forethought goes into moments that exist for 1/2000 of a second.

I have heard of Sports Illustrated photographers watching game film of football teams to gain an advantage.

Baseball has a lot of quick action, so I will use that as an example.  Baseball statisticians can track the exit velocity of batted balls, some of the hardest hit are over 100 MPH.  That gives you just a second or two to capture an infielder going for the ball.  Think about that; a shortstop can see the pitch and the batter swing at the ball and react. If you have your camera trained on the shortstop, you can only react to what the shortstop reacts to (and maybe the sound of the bat).  So you have less time to react to a scorching line drive than someone who has the potential to be paid millions for that skill.  Any baseball player would probably point out there is more skill involved in their profession than mine, but I digress.

So how do you put yourself in a good position?   Honestly, I take in account the pitcher, hitter, the number of strikes and the infielder’s positions. I try to guess the odds if the hitter will pull the ball or go the other way.   

Sometimes you get the photo even when they don't get the ball.

If a righter hander is batting, and he looks big, and pitcher doesn’ appear overpowering, I will guess he will pull the ball and watch the shortstop or third baseman. If there are two strikes in the count, I will assume there is less of a chance of pulling the ball, opting just to try to get a hit, instead of trying to hit it far.

Also, the infielders have a ton of data on the matchup, so I base whom I will focus my camera on by where they are playing.  They will give a hint as to where they think the ball is going to be hit.  These things aren’t concrete, but they help give you an advantage.

Nebraska's Jake Placzek fouls a pitch off the plate and into his face in the sixth inning against Michigan during the Big 10 Conference baseball tournament at TD Ameritrade Park on Saturday, May 24, 2014.

Sometimes all the planning in the world will not matter, and weird stuff just happens. Like when Nebraska's Jake Placzek fouled a ball off of home plate, and it came straight up to hit him in the face.  There were at least two other very talented photographers there beside me, one who had a photo just before it hit him, one just after it came off of his face.  No amount of planning could prepare you for this, I don't believe I have ever seen this happen before or since.  The other photogs were off just mere hundredths of a second from my photo.  That amount of time, meaningless to most people, was the differentiator with my photo, which later ran across two pages in Sports Illustrated.