How to Photograph Sporting Events

Al Messerschmidt puts the new Tamron SP 150-600mm VC lens through its paces at football games, baseball games, and the US Open.

Article by Jenn Gidman

Images by Al Messerschmidt

For photographer Al Messerschmidt, fall is one of the busiest times of year. It's football season, so his weekends are often spent at college and NFL games capturing the plays. But football photography isn't his only game: Al photographs all kinds of sporting events-from competitive sailing in Maine and rowing on Boston's Charles River to the US Open in Flushing Meadows and the Flying Tigers minor league baseball games that often take place near his Florida home. One recent addition to his sports photography arsenal: the new Tamron SP 150-600mm VC lens.

The 150-600's portability and sharpness make the lens an ideal companion when Al is photographing a sporting event. "This lens isn't very long or big and it doesn't weigh a lot, so I can handhold it for many of my pictures," he says. "Even when it comes to packing it for a trip, I'm able to fit it in my case with all the gear I'd normally carry with me on assignment, without having to add an extra bag. And the pictures I get are supersharp: I use the Vibration Compensation (VC) feature on some of the pictures I take, but my images are sharp and clear even without it."

Practice makes perfect in photographing sports events-especially when it comes to anticipating the players' moves. "You have to study the athletes and how they move, figure out their flow, then look at them in terms of where you can position yourself and in terms of background," Al says. "People who do a lot of sports photography know their athletes and look at the lineups a week ahead of time. Players move in different directions, depending on the sport: In tennis, they tend to move from side to side while you're on the sideline; in basketball, they move straight up the court and you may be looking at them head-on. If you can't accurately anticipate those movements, you won't be able to get a long lens in the right position."

Part of knowing how to anticipate the action is knowing what the best vantage point is at a sporting event. "In the first inning of an MLB game, all the photographers will be on either the first-base side or third-base side, based on whether the pitcher is a leftie or rightie," says Al. "If the pitcher is a left-handed pitcher, you want to be standing on the first-base side so you can see his face open up as he's throwing the ball; if he's right-handed, you want to be on the third-base side. This is especially true for photographers working for the wire services who need to get a picture of the starting pitcher on the wire right away-they need to know what side to be on right at the beginning. The same goes for a serve shot in tennis or a golf drive."

For a shot of 2012 Australian Open champ Taylor Townsend taken at this year's US Open, Al knew he wanted a picture from above, and he knew exactly where to go to get it. "The US Open in Queens is one of the few places you can take a picture like this from above," he says. "You can only do it on that one court, because the upper-level grandstand actually hangs over the court. In most stadiums, the grandstand recesses back, so you won't hang over the top as much. The people who get into the US Open know that shot-you just can't get that angle at other tournaments."

As a photographer, you not only want to get the right angle to photograph the action-you also want to ensure a tidy background. "I always try to get a clean background, like a blank wall, in my images," Al says. "It's difficult to get a simple, clean shot in many sports now with all the sponsorships and advertising on the walls. When I take pictures at an event like the US Open, I'll often shoot angles where I'll actually try to get the signage that says 'US Open' on it, but I try to avoid getting all those distracting sponsorship signs that will take away from the player or other element I'm trying to photograph."

Finding that clean background might involve an early-morning photo shoot. "The image shown here of the rowers on the Charles River in Boston was after a 6:30 a.m. Dunkin' Donuts stop," Al says. "I knew there were a few rowing clubs, especially with Harvard nearby, so I figured I'd go out and find some people practicing in that nice morning light and against those clean backgrounds I like."

The versatile range of the 150-600 allows Al to cover a variety of sporting events, from big-picture images of a competitive sailing competition to zooming in for the US Open. "We were in Maine, for instance, driving around when we saw this sailing regatta," he says. "I couldn't get a boat to take me out, so I actually just took a few pictures from the lawn of a church."

Because he likes to shoot tight, Al appreciates how far down the field or court he can shoot with the 150-600. "With a 1.4x extender, you can crank this lens up to almost 800mm," he says. "I can zoom in to capture a quarterback's face even if I'm all the way down the field. For the image I took of Serena Williams at the US Open, I was all the way on the opponent's backside pit, looking down the court at Serena. I was still able to get a sharp, effective picture with this lens. I'm able to reach places I normally wouldn't be able to with a 300mm or 400mm lens."

The selective-focus achievable with the 150-600 lets Al showcase the grit and determination on the players' faces by blurring out the background. "I want to get impact pictures that show emotion and what the players are going through-the 'thrill of victory and the agony of defeat,' as 'ABC's Wide World of Sports' used to say," Al notes. "I tend to look at the eyes-if they're interesting, I want to get them in my pictures. If you look at the one player hitting the tennis ball with the blue background behind her, her eyes are so fascinating. They captivated me."

Blurring out the background also helps Al capture the feel of the crowd as they're cheering their favorite teams or players on from the stands. "I want to show their expressions and excitement and what they're wearing," he says. "The 150-600 allows me to get out there and capture all of that by throwing out the background so I can focus in on a couple of people showing that excitement."

To see more of Al Messerschmidt's work, go to www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=6780.