How to Shoot a Baseball ChampionshipSwitch-hitter Christian Behr took a break from his usual fashion shoots to photograph the College World Series with the Tamron SP 70-300mm VC. |
Article by Jenn Gidman Images by Christian Behr |
Fashion and beauty photographer Christian Behr is used to shooting fashion spreads, not home runs. But when he got the opportunity to shoot the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, Christian didn't let his rookie sports status stop him. "One of the magazines I'm involved with was helping photograph images for a book called Playing in June," he says. "That's how I stumbled into doing sports for the week!" |
The photographers at this event were given all-access passes, so they were able to shoot from the field, in the bleachers, and in the dugout. With his Tamron SP 70-300mm VC lens, Christian was able to capture everything he wanted to tell a dramatic story. "The range of the 70-300 was great," he says. "Plus it was fast, so I could stop the motion and still get really strong images." |
Because the eight teams involved in the tournament played over several days at varying times, lighting was a huge variable. "The shadows can be a big issue for photographers at an event like this, especially when half the field is dark and half the field is in bright sunshine," Christian explains. "Some days were cloudy, some were sunny - it was never the same for any two games. When you're put in that position, you have to do an average metering so you bring the superbright a little darker, and the superdark a little lighter. The remaining part you may have to adjust in post-processing." |
Thanks to his full venue access, Christian was able to get a lot of compelling action shots. "We were actually on the field during play, so I could do full-frame pictures of the pitchers while they were doing their big windups and stop the action with the ball literally just leaving the pitcher's hand," he says. "The big trick is to make sure you get into rhythm with them: You have to watch for a few minutes as they pitch and do a beat-count like you would for music. Once you get into that rhythm, you'll know exactly when they're going to let go of that ball - that's when you press the shutter button. You'll also find out how fast your continuous drive performs!" |
Christian also chose to blur the ball to show movement in a few of his images. "By freezing the player and the surroundings, but showing the ball moving in a blur, you can tell a different story than if you just stopped everything," he explains. "You just open that 70-300 wide up and count back for shutter speed: The longer you have your shutter open, the more of a blur will exist." |
The warmups on the pitcher's mound and home runs were vital images for his College World Series pictorial, but to successfully shoot an event like this where so much is at stake, Christian composed a series of shots that told a more complete story. In addition to the action shots and details in the dugout, he noticed how pumped up both the players and their fans were. "It was obvious to us that there were some teams who had never been there before," he says. "You could just see their excitement: They came onto the field and looked around and were just in awe of the place. The same went for their fans, who traveled with them a great distance." |
Capturing the enthusiasm of these players and their fans was Christian's key to creating a winning baseball-championship narrative through imagery. "I'm always looking for expressions as a fashion photographer, so that part came naturally to me," Christian says. "You want to extract the excitement of the players and the crowd: There are expressions when they win, and expressions when they lose. That's what a baseball game is all about." |
The 70-300 allowed Christian to document the delight and disappointment that took place as the innings flew by. "It's wonderful to be able to shoot people in the crowd using the 300mm end of that lens from across the bleachers and capture the fan reaction, which is much better than having my camera right in their faces," he says. "You capture the hope, the despair, the head drops. The game is told on the faces of the fans." |
Christian wasn't a huge sports fan before this, but he relished the chance to photograph this exciting event. "It was an interesting situation to be put in," he says. "And it wasn't too unlike shooting a fashion shoot that's going very fast. It was fun to do something outside my comfort zone." |
To see more of Christian Behr's work, go to www.christianbehr.com. |