Sports with a side of frustration

Hazel Park Junior High School's team captain, Ronnel Best,
(Dressed in red, white and blue) put up enough fight to quickly
take down his opponent.

  This assignment, to say the least, ranks on the lower half of the list of assignments that I enjoyed. Going into this wrestling tournament, I assumed that it would be very easy to get good pictures because wrestling is very low on the movement scale what with all the writhing on the ground. Of course, I was wrong. Again.
  Even with very little movement going on in the "ring," there was still a fair amount of people that would not stop getting in my way, especially the referee. No matter which side of the gym I ran to, I could count on the referee to give me a good shot of his rear end. I must have taken at least twenty pictures of one match alone and of those twenty, I got maybe two decent pictures.
  As for the crowd, I was highly disappointed. This wasn't a regular wrestling meet, this was a tournament. With eight teams competing, I thought I would get amazing pictures of parents cheering their children on, instead I got one too many pictures of stone faced parents that could barely keep their eyes open.
  Fortunately, the coaches were far easier to shoot, even though many of the coaches were either flailing in anger or jumping with joy. It was nice to finally shoot someone with an emotion other than tired.
  With this assignment, I learned that I need to work on shooting sporting events. I became frustrated with this assignment very quickly. Sporting events are so much more unique than I thought. Everything at a sporting event plays a part in the quality of a picture, The environment is in constant motion, the crowd, the athletes, and the coaches.
  It is very important for the photographer to also be constantly moving. When one angle doesn't work, it's time to move. Sports are a lot trickier than one is lead to believe. It'll definitely take me a lot of practice to get a handle on sports photography.



Coach Oz of Hazel Park Junior High grew frustrated quickly with each
call the referee made.

The crowd looked on as the matches ensued.