PRINTS FOR THE COACHES--PEE-WEE FOOTBALL

Here are two images that I created from shots of my son’s football games this past season. I had these printed, mated, and framed for the coaches—one for offence, one for defense. All comments/suggestions for improvement are welcomed. I plan to do something similar for his basketball coach as the season starts next month.

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I think that this is a great idea and will be appreciated tremendously by both coaches. I think both look great and probably would not change a thing. Nice work!

These are very nice! The coaches at my school truly appreciate gestures such as these, so I'm sure yours will, too.

speaking as a coach, these are awsome. I have absolutely no photos of me coaching except the team photos which are not good at all (actually they are outright horrible). Did you use photoshop for it? I have posed photos of all my girls and one of me we did for the paper that I wouldnt mind trying to put into a collage of pics to replace the team one taken cuz it was so bad.

One thing I like to have on mine are year, team name, and players names (if a small team, football though theres a ton of kids so might not work to good). Actually since its matted could put that right under the photo which would be awsome. Know I'd like one hangin in my office (when i get an office that is).

Great idea! I may even borrow the concept. Would I owe you royalties? I know these will be greatly appreciated. The only comment I would make (and it is minor), everything in the the first photo makes your eye move to the right with nothing to bring you back, unlike the second one. Great job.

I agree you have found something that is great. I really like the expression on the coaches face in #1

MJPhotos24: What is up with the “professional” photographers that are used for city league team sports? Like you, I yet to see any decent photos from them. For these prints I looked through images I had taken during all their games, I had purposely taken shots of the coaches for this reason. I use Photoshop Elements 3.0 (4.0 has just been released) along with Scott Kelby’s book “The Photoshop elements 3 book for digital photographers.” Basketball has now started for both of my boys, I will use your suggestion of adding the team name and year to the next prints. I had not thought of that.

pmccann_md: Of course you would owe me royalties, this is America isn’t it (tee hee)? You are right about the first image, I thought about transposing one of the images but it just didn’t seem right. All the games except one were played at night so even though I had many images, not a lot of them were really good. My choices were limited.


We gave the images to the coaches and they really liked them. The other parents were very impressed also. Thank you all for the comments; I can’t wait to start shooting the basketball games. I have a feeling some parents are going to want to buy prints from me. It might be more trouble than it is worth; I guess I will have to see.

Hey Wagonwheel I always take a couple of shots of the coaches. No matter what sport I shoot. I try to get them when they are yelling at the ref or pointing to someone on the floor. one of the best was a coach who is now retired with his hands on his face near the end of a game with the bench and assitants. they are as much a part of the game as the players.

At the school I coach volleyball at they come in ONE day and shoot every team in a row usually pi$$in coaches off majorly (only team, no individuals, game shots? yeaa righhhtt). They tried to do our photo an hour early w/ only 4 players in it!! When I refused the student helper made some things up and told the principal (all lies and nothin happened with it - here i thought i was to old for someone to tell the principal on me) . The year before they did all photos outside (including indoor sports) with 20 mph winds so all the girls hair was straight accross their face, the year before the photos were so dark they looked like they were taken in a cave. Our photo this year the bright white jerseys look grey and the purple shorts/side of jerseys look, well I'm not sure that color that is but its ugly. Luckily their contract ends this year and hopefully they'll get the boot! Another school I'm at they just hired a guy this year, I havent seen his work but we'll find out. We didnt have one before and I did all my teams stuff. I just think schools and city leagues hire the photographers that dont actually care what the photos look like, they just want them done.

I dont have elements, I have photoshop version 8 and dont know to much with it really. Going to have to start experimenting. My buddy is an expert in it (graphic design guy) so have to pick his brain a lot.

I'm sure parents will want some shots, hell if they dont have a photographer that does it then you can make some $$$. Just doing my teams b-ball posed shots last year I made around $100 in 10 mins of shooting...payed for the trophies and pizza party so I was happy

Hey again,
Just tested out some stuff after talkin to my buddy and then threw this together as my first attempt at doing somethin like this....

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I too got sick of the poor quality of the "meat grinder" sport photography services that crank out a billion shots per season and started my own business. After the last couple of years, they started to try a more "graphic" approach with an attempt at a more stylized look, but still fall way short of anything remarkable. Here are a couple of my poster samples from the last two football seasons; both were end-of-season gifts for the coaches (me included). Both posters took individual shots that were arranged in PS and completed with backgrounds and logos (which I also designed). I also did sports cards that featured a more individual personality rather than the stock pose that everyone else spits out (if you'd like some ideas, I can post those too). Let me know if you have any questions!

Leave the mass-producing to the auto industry...

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Those look awsome. How long does it take to do one of those? I cant figure out for the life of me how to take out the background around the players like you did. I tried playing around some more and did this one...

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I took individuals (posed) of each player and drew paths around each and created a selection. Taking this selection, I placed each on a pre-designed background and moved them around until I found the best aesthetic arrangement. From there, it was just plugging in copy and adding any visuals. The first poster ended up being 30" x 12" with the second at 22" x 11." I imagine you could also use the Extract feature in PS, but a .75 pixel feather usually works just fine for me and it offers a little more control.

I found the extract feature and you are correct, not to much control with it and takes a good amount of time for each photo. Not sure what the .75 pixel feather is but will search around when I get more time.

Thanks

YOu have done an admirable job here...

Great Work
Cheers,