Soccer

After posting something on Hockey, I thought it would be interesting to post something on Soccer!

Last year, the Palatine Celtic Soccer Club allowed me to shoot over 40 of their games as well as their tournament. I like shooting sports on occasion to sharpen my reaction skills and there is nothing better than photographing a bunch of kids having fun!

Besides offering just typical photos of the kids playing on the field, I also offered fully Photoshopped versions. As you can see, the original actually has another person behind Kristen (which is not her real name by the way.) But I was able to remove the other person (whose face has been obscured to hide her identity) and other undesirable elements. Then, I Photoshopped other elements to create a “Magazine Cover” and a “Trading Card.”

To shoot soccer, you need to have a long zoom lens with a wide aperture so that the backgrounds blur out nicely. These shots were taken with a Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 lens (for weddings, I use a Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 VR lens which is well known for it’s superior image quality.) Shutter speeds should be as fast as possible. This one was taken at 1/2000 second. This speed will literally stop the spin on a ball even when kicked hard!