Autumn athletics photography is underway, with images from Boys Varsity Soccer, Girls Varsity Soccer, and Girls Varsity Volleyball posted in Tiger Sports Report for viewing and on Exposure Manager for purchase. As I did in the spring, I thought I would take this opportunity to offer some photographic advice for those who wish to try their hand at sports photography.

If your pictures aren’t good enough, you're not close enough
Robert Capa may not have been thinking of longer lenses when he said this, but you’re going to need one to get closer to the action of all of the autumn athletics. I use the 70-200mm zoom for Boys and Girls Varsity Cross-country, Coed Varsity Water polo, Girls Varsity Tennis, and Girls Varsity Volleyball. You are able to be close enough to the action where a lens of 135-200mm will provide you with compositions that allow you to see the intensity on the face of the athlete and yet wide enough so you can see the sport. For Boys and Girls Varsity Soccer I use a 400mm lens so that most of what takes place on the field is visible and reasonably composed. A lens this long may not be practical for many photographers as it’s very heavy and has a narrow field of view. Of course, a lens this long is still not long enough to capture something taking place all the way across the field and is too long to capture a player who ...

The response to the Facebook and Twitter pages has been fascinating. Thus far there have been two schools of thought. One I might describe as, “It’s about time” and the other as “Why have you taken the darkened road and tarnished the reputation of Trinity.” I thought I would use this post to describe the experience of establishing a presence for Trinity on Facebook and Twitter and outline how both are intended to serve the School.

I had been watching the development of the various social networking sites for several years and when Sine Charta launched, my interest in sites such as My Space, Facebook, and Twitter became more focused. But, I had several concerns including deep concerns about the copyright and liability issues raised by the social networking sites. Those concerns intensified when Facebook began automatically creating “Community Pages” for schools and other organizations. Faced with the prospect of having Trinity’s Facebook presence be dictated in an unofficial way, it became clear that the School needed to take an active role on the site. As I began investigating how other organizations were using Facebook, I was surprised to find very few that appeared to be doing anything at all. Almost all of Trinity’s peer schools have “Community Pages” but few have official pages on Facebook. Even when I expanded my search to universities and large multinational organizations I found just a handful that were doing anything of interest. But, I did find a few that appeared to have found ...

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.”
-Henry David Thoreau

I know from my conversations with parents, students, and teachers, that there is great interest in how the Trinity School calendar images are planned and selected. Most people are quite surprised when I tell them what is involved. I’m not certain what they expect the process to be, although it is clearly something different from what actually happens. For those of you who have not had this conversation with me, or who haven’t had it in a while, here is a description of what happens.

The calendar must equally represent the three divisions

Ever since the calendar was produced for the 1996-1997 academic year, I have done my best to make it representative of the school. To provide a foundation to meet this goal, the twelve images that make up the calendar are divided equally among the three divisions, with each being represented by four images. The cover image rotates among the three divisions so that each gets a turn on the front of the publication.

The calendar must be representative of the student experience

As I plan the thirteen photo shoots for the calendar (yes, the photo shoots are specifically structured for use in the calendar alone) I strive to make certain that the ...