At a high school soccer game this fall, the sun was setting and the light was beautiful on one part of the field. I also had clients there, families counting on me for action photos of their players. I kept arguing with myself. Stay in the light and wait, or follow my players wherever the ball went? I did one in the first half and the other in the second, and the finished frames settled it. Pick your spot for a reason, and let the play come to you.
Watch it here, then keep reading for the short version.
Every sports photographer wrestles with where to stand. Soccer makes it harder. The field is huge. Near one goal, one team runs at you and the other faces away. Stand at midfield and you see both teams, but a shot on goal happens with the player's back to you.
The action also rarely stops, so you move while the game goes on. I usually reposition at halftime or when subs come in.
Stay in the light. Park where the light is good and wait for the action. The payoff is light you can't fake later.
Follow the action. You're closer to the play, and sometimes closer to the big moment. On a field this big, you're also moving and hoping. It slides into spray and pray, which means holding the shutter down everywhere and hoping something works. In the second half the sun was gone and the stadium lights were dim and uneven, so I did more of this.
Pick a spot where the two overlap. Most players are right-footed, so teams tend to push the ball down their right side. I haven't studied it, but my guess is 55/45, sometimes 60/40. I stand on that side, between midfield and the goal they're attacking, so players kick toward me. Then I slide along the sideline as play moves. That's how I get two eyes and the ball instead of the backs of jerseys.
When I started, I shot film, and every press of the shutter cost money. I was taught to ask one question first: why are you taking this picture?
Recently I was at Victoria Peak in Hong Kong, surrounded by people taking selfies. I wanted to ask them why. For me, it was more than the view. It was how big the city felt, and the dark night against the lit buildings. That told me to grab my widest lens, and what the final edit should look like.
At a game, ask the same thing. Why am I in this position? What am I hoping to get from this spot? What lens does that call for?
Staying with the light made better, more unique images. One client told me some of her favorite photos from that night were of her daughter almost just standing around, with that beautiful light behind her.
Most first-half frames came from my Nikon Z9 with a 300mm f/2.8 and a 1.4x teleconverter, at 1/1250 and f/4. A teleconverter sits between lens and camera and adds reach. Mine turns the 300mm into a 420mm at f/4. In the second half, under the stadium lights, my D5 with the same setup was at ISO 16,000. If night noise is your problem too, I tested noise reduction software in this post.
Sometimes it's worth losing some images to get better ones. That won't hold every game. Some nights the light is flat and you work with what you have.
You don't need a long lens for this. Whatever lens you own limits where you can shoot from, which makes picking your spot easier. A shorter lens near the goal and a longer one for the rest of the field is one way to split it.
After the game, compare your best frames from each half, or from each spot you stood in. It takes about ten minutes. Then ask what that tells you about where to stand next time.
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Join the email listWould you stay in the light, or follow your players? Have you noticed the action drifting to the right in soccer? Leave it in the comments on the video. I read all of them, and no judgment either way.
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