A Baseball Game and Softball Boredom...

On Friday, two of my assignments were the crosstown baseball game here in town and a softball game in Sweetwater between Brownwood and Sweetwater, with the winner taking the district 5-3A title.

The first game, the crosstown game, went pretty quick and I was able to stay for most of the game. The problem was the parts I was there for weren't nearly as exciting as I'd have liked them to be. I got a few decent shots, but while I was there just didn't have a whole lot of action going on. The one shot I really did like of the cooper player diving to pull in a ball, I couldn't use since Abilene High ended up winning the game. Oh well, that's part of the problem with baseball, when the pitchers throw too well, the photos tend to take a backseat, along with the offense.

For the softball game in Sweetwater, Brownwood took control of things early and the game was never close. The Lady Lions ended up winning the game, and while there was a lot more offense and action than the baseball game earlier, I ended up getting kind of bored towards the end of the game. Maybe it was because I'd shot 13 innings of baseball/softball that day, maybe it was the total number of games I'd shot over the last few weeks. Either way, when boredom sets in I tend to try and have a little fun with things. On Friday, my cure for boredom was playing around a little with slow shutter speeds and the pitcher. At first I was just dragging the shutter a little to her the motion of her arm, but I didn't like that all that much. I kept leaving it open a little longer and following the pitcher's motion. I got close with the photo, I ended up shooting the top shot at 1/2 a second and at f/22. I'm not totally thrilled with the shot, but I think it's a good start, I wish I could have popped a little flash to bring out her face just a little bit and more importantly the spin of the ball. Oh well, it got me through the game, maybe next time.