I am not a sports fan, but as a girl with a healthy competitive streak and a love of snapping pictures I’ve found that I *do* enjoy games and taking action shots. That said kid sports = entirely different from snapping photos at a professional baseball or football game!! This is my rookie year as a soccer mom, and as such I’ve been really enjoying taking photos of the team.

After the games I sit Elizabeth down and we talk about the things she did great (and the things we’re going to work on) and love looking at them all. In doing this for five weeks now, I’ve found some things that I thought I would share with you today.

• shots that show all the action/players on the field are boring. Take a few, fine, but spend time zooming in and focusing on individuals and interesting angles.
• Get down! I get a good workout in squatting for most of the game. Putting myself lower to the ground gets me more on eye level with these girls (probably not as big of a deal with older kids)
• Move! I walk all around the areas I can, careful to stay behind other parents and well out of the coaches and players way but still moving and getting different perspectives

• Snap in bursts! I like to snap about 4-6 at a time quick as I can – this gets me some interesting stuff for sure – and sometimes sets up a great sequence.
• Play with focus. I really like to get as micro of a focus as I can – I much prefer a very sharp subject and very blurred background when I can. That said – be careful that with each shot you make sure your subject is the focus!! I’ve had some great shots ruined because I wasn’t checking!
• Auto mode is where I live. Oh, I’ve played with some manual stuff and even the ‘sport’ mode, I find I get better photos on straight auto.

Share! So far I’m the only one on the team sharing (also only one with camera attached to head during all games) – but I know it’s appreciated. We have a private team site where we can share photos, and order prints as well. Speaking of team – I crop or ‘blur’ other kids faces if I’m posting photos online.

My final thought is to think about what photos you save, treasure, and love and focus on taking those kinds of pictures. Don’t worry about capturing a complete detailing of the game, or every single time your player gets the ball. Sometimes when they do NOT have the ball is a great time to take their photo!

do you have tips to share? Ideas and things that you really like to do/use when photographing kid sports? Please feel free to share!

I will share one more thing – and that is that I totally recommend Bella Blvd “Making the Team” for a themed sports craft projects. It manages to be specific and more all-purpose all at the same time! Scrapbook.com has most of the line. (below is the soccer paper + their logos) – I just LOVE it!!