Shooting Soccer is Hard!

Thanks to a heads-up from Christina over at the Kaufman Herald I had the fun of shooting both KHS soccer playoff games at Richardson Pearce HS last week. I did not make it out to any of the regular season games, but from what I understand, both teams have played very well in a rigged-up 4A district.

With the girls starting at 6PM, there was plenty of light. OK, so there was so much light that it made for really contrasty shadowy faces for a while. But I will not complain... light is good for shutter speeds, remember?


Kaufman was playing the Highland Park Lady Scots...


Unfortunately, it did not take long to see that the Lady Lions were a bit overmatched in this one. Most of the action was happening on the defensive end of the field, so I headed down there.




There were some nice shadows forming from the bleachers which helped a little with the harsh sun


There wasn't much help for the ugly car background though.
From the side of the field...




One gets by..


With the game winding down and the score 8-0, the Lady Lions held tough for the last four minutes.


It would be easy to make excuses playing against a much larger school with a more experienced team. After all, the HP squad was making substitutions of three or four rested players at a time. And they made sure to park their big black charter bus in plain view. Impressed? Hardly. The Lady Lions took the loss pretty hard, and I got the impression that they will certainly come back with something to prove next year.

Then it was time for the boys to play Richardson Pearce. This was a home game for Pearce, but the Kaufman crowd matched them for volume. Especially with some less-than-favorable officiating. Nice sunset happening back there somewhere...


As you can tell, this is not much of a stadium. I suppose you don't need light to play soccer, but it sure helps for photographers. To make matters more interesting, there were dark and light spots in the field. I just under-exposed and hoped for the best. There was still a lot of motion blur to ruin shots.


Or maybe it is just artistry? Yes, that's it, artistry.

It is hard to decide where to shoot from in soccer. I wish had been closer to this collision.


The Pearce crowd and announcer seemed pretty proud of their goalie...


But at halftime the score was tied at 2. (do they call it halftime in soccer?)

The Lions' goalie got some knee reinforcement


And overall the team was in good spirits.


The second half was a tough battle, but the Lions had no answer for two more Pearce goals.

My timing was way off. It was a lot like shooting basketball in that you always have to be watching and anticipating. It took well into the second game to get close to a header-on-the ball shot, and there were plenty of opportunities.


The closest I got for the Lions was way out of focus.


There was plenty of mid-field action.




Did I mention it was dark?








Soccer will not likely become my favorite sport to shoot anytime soon. It is, however, quite a challenge, which makes it fun.

Prints are available, as always, at http://www.doncjohnson.zenfolio.com/

Happy Shooting,

Don J