Like countless other families, summer is soccer season in my house, so I now spend several evenings a week sitting out in a field chatting with other parents as our kids mob together around the ball and learn important life lessons. One of the highlights of the season (at least for my kids) are the photocards. Each girl, standing proudly in her jersey, soccer ball casually tucked under an elbow or trapped under a cleated foot. Somehow during one of these chats, I ended up volunteering (or did I get drafted?) to take the pictures this season. 'Yeah, sure, I can do that.' I said, 'And it'll be free!' they all replied.

The seriousness of what I'd committed to finally set in and I started planning. I knew that I'd have to shoot the pictures before a game to have everyone looking their best. I said I'd need to have everyone there about half an hour before game time. What was I thinking? 30 minutes to shoot 17 kids, plus the team shot.

I arrived at the field early to scout out a location: somewhere out of the way with an uncluttered background but close by. It was a cloudy day, which meant flat light and no shadows, so I set up a flash to provide some depth and contrast to the setting. (I'll talk more about my gear in a later post) I did some test shots so I'd be ready as soon as the players arrived.

And then it started to rain.

When the rain stopped, I had 15 minutes to game time. I set up again, rechecked everything, dispatched a few players to gather the rest, crossed my fingers and started shooting. 

I first shot each girl's jersey number so I'd have some way to match the images against the roster later. I shot each girl in the 'standard' soccer pose (foot on the ball) and then gave them a quick chance to do something different and then onto the next. Zip zip zip, about a minute each.
 


Two minutes before gametime, the whole team had arrived. I stopped shooting individual players and set up the group shot. I knew I wanted it to be a little more casual and less posed than the typical team shot, so I just let the girls arrange themselves for a few moments, pushed the groups into place, made sure everyone was visible and shot about 10 fast shots. Always shoot more than you think you need with big groups of kids.

I managed to shoot a few more individuals as the game got started but never got through the whole roster before they were rainsoaked and ragged. Using the preview function on the camera, I determined who was still missing and arranged for them to be early at the next game.

Two days later, same time, same location. Totally different lighting conditions. Now instead of using the flash to provide contrast, I used it to soften the harsh shadows of the summer sun.
 

As my missing players arrived, I pulled them over, shot them and crossed them off my list. I even got some reshoots of the others.

All the photos shot and transferred to the computer, I selected the best images, cropped, color balanced and saved the files with the player names and numbers to keep the printing process organized. I also created a cool border design with the team name and their names and numbers and made cards for each of them.

Now, you might think all of this sounds like crazed, stress-filled anarchy and you'd be right, but it's not unexpected and it's what makes taking pictures like this interesting and fun.

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