photoblog
This time around, I didn’t let the rain scare me away from my shoots. …and I really think it helped improve the visual impact of these portraits.
River Hill sophomore Rena Shi wins with accuracy. She won top honors in the County Championships, but a hurt right wrist held her from advancing further in State play, but not before predominately using her backhand to win the first round of state playoffs. She is photographed at River Hill High School’s tennis courts Thursday, June 11, 2009.
REMEMBER TO CLICK THE LINK TO SEE MORE PHOTOS!
Glenelg Country senior Ryan Kent serves a 125-135 mph serve. He will be playing for Delaware next year. Kent is photographed at the Wilde Lake Tennis Club Thursday, May 28, 2009.
River Hill senior Katie Harman won the gold in the states one and two mile races. She will run for James Madison University next year. Harman is photographed at the River Hill track Monday, June 1, 2009.
The signature low side arm of Ashley Bruns helped the Mt. Hebron senior become the county’s top scorer (103 points). She is photographed at Mt. Hebron’s stadium Saturday, May 30, 2009.
Centennial senior attack Harrison Chaires will be playing for the Naval Academy next year. He is photographed at Centennial High School Friday, June 12, 2009.
Double threat, Hammond junior Travis Clark throws hard on the mound and is a threat at the plate. He is photographed at the Hammond softball field (the baseball diamond was being used) Saturday, May 30, 2009.
Hammond senior pitcher Stephanie Speierman pitches in the high 60′s and has used her defensive power to set the Maryland state career strikeout record. Next year she will play for Michigan, one of the top softball programs in the nation. She is photographed at Atholton Elementary School’s softball field Tuesday, May 26, 2009.
Atholton senior Graham Bazell is the 2009 male runner of the year. He will be running for Stanford next year. Bazell is photographed at the Atholton High School track Thursday, June 4, 2009.
——-Girls Tennis Outtake—–
I really love this photo, but I think I love the image at top of this post a bit more.
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All content © 2012 by Matt Roth
Thanks Alim… but my name’s Matt, not Mark.
The funny thing is, that when I was 4 years old, I told some kids in my day care that my name was, in fact, Mark.
silly kids doing silly things.
Hey Daniel,
For the most part, I just let them get rained on. The rain looks more dramatic in the images than it actually was.
The most dramatic rain I experienced was a soft drizzle.
I gotta say…you’re a genius.
Matt, sorry about that….I was double tasking here and was sending an email to a Mark (oops). My bad…again great great work! I’m working on setting up a blog and will be sure to add your site to the links section. Looking forward to seeing some more of your work.
Hi Matt,
Actually I do have a question on the lacrosse shot of Harrison (amazing image), which I guess would apply to most, if not all, all the other shots. Specifically, it has to do with focusing. . .
When working with off-camera lighting, do you manually prefocus where the subject will be then have them enter the frame (for a chance at a single snap) or do you employ technologies like AF Servo to follow the subject (for a chance of multiple snaps)?
What advice would you have to offer on working with off-camera & AF…very curious…thanks! =)
Hope all is well…
Got to your blog via Strobist. Add my “Wow” to the others. Killer work. It’s fun and exciting to see such extremely high quality work coming out of a local newspaper. My hat’s off to you, Matt (not Mark). Your work has helped to inspire me; just an old retired guy having fun with photography. Nick
Hey Alim.
Thanks for adding me to your blog roll. that’s super cool.
As far as focusing is concerned, I’m usually using a large depth of field because I have to choke the aperture to like f/22 to compensate for the 1/250th shutter sync speed.
That’s where a really clean background is key. I hate trees, cars, and field banners getting in my shot.
So, while I don’t have to worry too much about getting the images tack sharp, like when I’m shooting wide open, I still have to worry about motion blur at 1/250th.
For most of these photos I prefocus and ask the athletes to try to keep their action in a specific area. After that, I have to rely on my timing skills.
As far as advice when using AF with off-camera strobes… well, for action-centric photos like the ones I did, I’ve found the AF useful when pre-focusing. It speeds up my process. I have astigmatism and my eyes are constantly telling my brain to refocus. It sometimes leads to a lot of second guessing on my part: is this in focus or is this in focus? A or B? The funny thing is, when I’m “in the zone” on a daily assignment, my astigmatism doesn’t become a problem. But when stuff starts getting nit-picky, is when it starts getting in my way. I’m sure a bunch of shooters out there can relate to this.
But I can’t rattle off too many shots when a kid’s flying through the air, like Harrison is. He’ll only be able to fall flat on the ground so many times before he really hurts himself. (one of my biggest fears) So, the last thing I need is the AF to get distracted by something in the distance and ruin that take.
Also, for me, it’s easier to concentrate on what the athlete is doing without having to think about smashing my thumb into the AF button. I just follow and click. Thanks for the question.
This site rocks!
Great stuff, thanks for sharing with us.
I really like it.
there’s not much i can say that hasn’t already been said, just wanted to thank you for sharing your ideas with everyone and congratulate you on some amazing work…….keep it up
Cracking photos and thanks for taking the time to explain some things.
I agree by the way, i think the rain totally makes some of those shots pop out. I would have stayed in doors i think! What do i know though!
Matt,
Thanks for the AF breakdown, it was very helpful! =)
Look forward to seeing some more images soon…have a great weekend!
Matt,
Very good job. Not sure if you know that if your strobs are set under 1/4 power you can stop a bit more action on the tips of bats and so forth. Not very often I can shoot at that power during the day.
Keep up the good work.
Grady
Those are some Amazing photos Matt. i’ve always wanted to take pictures in the rain myself but was always too afraid. Do you use anything to protect the camera from getting wet?
Great shots, but I can’t believe that in the USA you make such a big deal about high school athletes. Here they get no coverage…well because they are only in high school. Seems a bit much really. But great shots.
Hey Andrew. I’m glad you like the photos. Truth be told, high school students typically don’t get this kind of treatment. The Howard County Times is a rare publication with a hyper-local focus and LOTS of editorial space to fill. The major metro dailies in the area dailies, the Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post fill their sports pages with not only the local pro teams, but big deal college athletics in addition to national and sometimes international sports-related news. They cover high school, too, but not to the degree that we do. As far as sports is concerned, High School athletics is our bread n’ butter. We’ll never cover the Ravens or Orioles and we’ll rarely cover the local community college sports. Think of it this way, The Howard County Times only cover stuff that’s relevant to Howard County.
For these shoot I did not, but David Hobby’s white trash bag diffusion trick with his mom in the water gave me some ideas.
Really, really amazing!
Great shots, great technique.
хаха жжёте я аж возбудилась (;
holy crap! these are amazing for high school portraits… hell, even for pro sports portraits. luck kids to score you as their photog! beautiful work.
tp
Holy cow!!! These shots are freaking awesome!!!!!!!
FYI: Google translates Porevo’s comments to “haha I burn as much excited (;”
awesome.
PБлагодаря Porevo! Я перевел все эти вещи через Google Translate. Я на самом деле не знает русский.
Excellent site, keep up the good work. I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say I’m glad I found your blog. Thanks,
A definite great read…:)
-Bill-Bartmann
Thanks Bill. That’s so nice to hear.
Great stuff!
Matt, love the shots, ” wish i could produce anything near the kind of photo’s your producing, a huge thanks for the inspiration and well done.
Great site…keep up the good work.
I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say I’m glad I found your blog. Thanks, 
A definite great read.. <a href=”http://wiki.hudson-ci.org/display/~bill-bartmann”
-Bill-Bartmann
[...] at images by Baltimore/DC photographer, Matt Roth. Found his photoblog via Strobist.com. He has a series of images of high school players of the year. I found them fascinating since I frequently shoot images of [...]
I don’t know If I said it already but …Cool site, love the info. I do a lot of research online on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say I’m glad I found your blog. Thanks,
A definite great read..
-Bill-Bartmann
Hey, great blog…but I don’t understand how to add your site in my rss reader. Can you Help me, please
[...] I caught a blog post by Matt Roth, a staff shooter at a small Maryland paper who got the assignment to shoot local star high school athletes, and really went to town on it. Again, I don’t see work like this in my near future, but [...]
[...] Then I caught a blog post by Matt Roth, a staff shooter at a small Maryland paper who got the assignment to shoot local star high school athletes, and really went to town on it. Again, I don’t see work like this in my near future, but [...]
HOLY CRAP are these great!!!
Spectacular stuff, every one of the shots. The last one with the topspin throwing water off the tennis ball is some wicked timing. These kids must have gone nuts when they saw the final product!
Hey …uh, Trade Stocks Online.
*that’s a funny name*
Yeah I’ve got a list rivaling Santa’s “Good” list of things to do. Adding to my blog roll is definitely on there.
Thanks Andy and Mark.
Yeah the kids were totally stoked with the end results. I usually show them what I’m working towards during the shoot and that gets them even more invested. When the get that I’m trying to make them look awesome they’re totally into it!
There is obviously a lot to know about this. There are some good points here.
Your site was extremely interesting, especially since I was searching for thoughts on this subject last Thursday.
These are amazing. Great idea to use the different conditions to your advantage. Sharp eye for great action as well.
[...] Matt Roth Photo [...]
amazing photographs! i’ve never seen action pics captured so well!
That shot of Harrison Chaires is better than anything in Inside Lacrosse Magazine, how far off he ground is he and how did he get up there… maybe the pic, and you Matt, should be there!
[...] at images by Baltimore/DC photographer, Matt Roth. Found his photoblog via Strobist.com. He has a series of images of high school players of the year. I found them fascinating since I frequently shoot images of [...]
This is so inspiring! It gave me the courage to do this: http://www.fritzson.net/photos/sports/Elin/
wow, these are way cool. what kind of lights do u use and how do you fire them ?
thanks
billy
Hey Billy. Thanks for the note. Check out the comments thread. I posted some pretty detailed explanations on how this shot was made. But if you really just want to know about my gear, I used Alien Bees and Pocket Wizards.