I am spending some time looking through my own action photos from this past sports season.  I have to admit that while I have some good shots, I’m not super excited about too many of them.  I think that I have done better work — perhaps I am trying to raise my own bar a little higher.  Basketball season presents a ton of challenges, as much of it happens in very poorly lit high school gyms.

Looking at some of the photos, I was happy to get some “head-on-ball” headers–capturing the point of impact where you can see the compression of the ball.  Unfortunately, most of them are not quite as sharp as I would like, or I have the back the players head.  Darn.

I like to look at some of the sequences.  Here is one of my favorites.  Who do you think got their foot on the ball?

The player in blue has some really funny facial expressions in some of my other shots.  I’ve found that a lot of athletes make some absolutely incredible faces while they play.

Figure out yet who got the ball?

Be honest, now, did you get it right?  It was a tough season, for photos.  Lots of direct sunlight — great for fans, but not great for the photography. Here’s an example–really tough shadows in the harsh light:

We did get one rainy game, and this is perhaps one of my favorites from the season.  A quiet moment of the game, setting up for the restart, in the downpour.  It looks better when you view it full size than in this smaller version (click on it).

A ton of new photos coming to toprowphotography.com, mvactionphoto.com and our Flickr group during the next few weeks.  Check ‘em out!