Volleyball Team Photo

Since you all have seen so much of this group I thought I would post a team photo we did tonight for some things they are doing getting ready for the state tourney.

5D Mk II with 24-70 f/2.8 1/160 f/6.3 ISO 100. Four Elinchrom 600RX's. Two on either side of the camera with umbrellas, two on 13 ft stands fully extended with grid spots positioned back left and right about 5 feet from the ends of the net and 2 580 EXII's with gobos about 1 ft in front of the net shooting down it to help (unsuccessfully) light the net. Black nets just don't light very well.

Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

I think this is a great pic!!!

Nice work

Gee Kevin, they are all looking at you and not mom or dad or whoever is either behind you or off to the side.
Nice pic, by the way. That's a lot of flash power.

Great shot!

great pic. how long did it take to setup a shot with that much hardware?

Hey Kevin

I think you did a great job with the net. The lighting on the group is uneven though. I see two challenges -- you have some girls stuck in shadows, and there is lot of hard light edges bleeding through onto the back row. Hard light is okay, but it needs to be consistent when you are edging your subjects. There is a great deal of dead space between alot of the girls, and when you pose a group like this, if you don't tighten them up, then you almost need to work them into individual poses with dynamic diagonals, etc. Number 30, for instance, doesn't fit the energy profile of the picture.

Just thought I would throw a few ideas your way.

Thanks for the nice comments.

MT Stringer wrote in post #8854470
Gee Kevin, they are all looking at you and not mom or dad or whoever is either behind you or off to the side.
Nice pic, by the way. That's a lot of flash power.

Fortunately, they only others in the gym were the coaches and they were off doing something else so they could avoid having to be in the photo. The toughest part was they wanted to look tough but a couple of them have a hard time not smiling any time they are in front of a camera.

Apollo.11 wrote in post #8854504
great pic. how long did it take to setup a shot with that much hardware?

It took about an hour but normally takes about 30 minutes. I have set up four light setups so many times I'm getting pretty fast at it.

I had to switch to a plan B which meant redoing everything. I wanted to shoot them with the wall of bleachers as a background but it has a glossy paint that made for serious hot spots then wasted about 10 minutes trying to decide if I wanted to use the 580's and if so where to place them. Obviously that turned out to be a wasted 10 minutes.

mattograph wrote in post #8854545
Hey Kevin

I think you did a great job with the net. The lighting on the group is uneven though. I see two challenges -- you have some girls stuck in shadows, and there is lot of hard light edges bleeding through onto the back row. Hard light is okay, but it needs to be consistent when you are edging your subjects. There is a great deal of dead space between alot of the girls, and when you pose a group like this, if you don't tighten them up, then you almost need to work them into individual poses with dynamic diagonals, etc. Number 30, for instance, doesn't fit the energy profile of the picture.

Just thought I would throw a few ideas your way.

Great points and excellent info for everyone when looking at this photo.

I find it hard to get good even backlighting on large groups and is why I originally wanted to shoot them with the bleachers as the background and use the backlights to more evenly light the background. When I realized that was not going to work as hoped I was scrambling to adjust and really just guessed at where to position the backlights without much opportunity to test and adjust. I only had about 10 minutes to get this done before their practice was to start and had to get two other shots of a couple of individuals for another project so it was very run and gun to say the least.

I actually tried to get them more organized but was paying more attention to the time than the group which was an error on my part. #30 and the girl to her left were supposed to have been holding their balls with both hands like they were trying to crush them which is why the extra space was there to start with. I honestly had not noticed that they didn't stick with that pose until you pointed it out. I also repositioned #31 three times to deal with the hot spot on her face and every time she would turn straight back at the camera.

Thanks again for pointing out the details that could have made this better. A much better learning experience for everyone, me included.

Kevin, I'll start by saying that this is a very nice shot all in all. I do have a few comments along the lines that Matt pointed out. This may seem nitpicky but I agree that the spacing needs to be tighter. The girl in the back row (second from right) needs to have that elbow down since the shadow she creates really detracts from her teammate. I also think that #15 needs to emulate the pose of #20 to balance the image. Her pose makes things less symmetrical but also creates dead space on the left.

Just some things to think about and like I said, I am nitpicking here.

namasste wrote in post #8858316
Kevin, I'll start by saying that this is a very nice shot all in all. I do have a few comments along the lines that Matt pointed out. This may seem nitpicky but I agree that the spacing needs to be tighter. The girl in the back row (second from right) needs to have that elbow down since the shadow she creates really detracts from her teammate. I also think that #15 needs to emulate the pose of #20 to balance the image. Her pose makes things less symmetrical but also creates dead space on the left.

Just some things to think about and like I said, I am nitpicking here.

Thanks for the feedback Scott. Nitpicking is very much appreciated. The little details are what really make for improvements.

I was the one who had the girl left up her elbow. She was set on holding the ball like that and it was an easy way to fix the hot spot on the side or her face similar to #31. In hindsight, I agree with your observation and should have fixed it a different way.

Pesonally, I wish I would have had #20 emulate #15 and adjusted that side of the group to get the symmetrical look you mention. Hindsight sure would be more handy if it was foresight.

#30 is the girl I mentioned in the PM that is the top shelf basketball player. Man, I'm ready for hoops.

Thanks again.

Big K wrote in post #8858441
Hindsight sure would be more handy if it was foresight.

#30 is the girl I mentioned in the PM that is the top shelf basketball player. Man, I'm ready for hoops.

Thanks again.

and if my aunt had...well, you know.

That explains why #30 looks bad azz, cuz she is!

Worked out nice.

haha, when I saw your talk about #30 I went to look at the photo again and just realized she also has a ball in her hands. didn't realize they all had one anyways, overall the photo worked out nice. nice work

Big K wrote in post #8854775
Great points and excellent info for everyone when looking at this photo.

I find it hard to get good even backlighting on large groups and is why I originally wanted to shoot them with the bleachers as the background and use the backlights to more evenly light the background. When I realized that was not going to work as hoped I was scrambling to adjust and really just guessed at where to position the backlights without much opportunity to test and adjust. I only had about 10 minutes to get this done before their practice was to start and had to get two other shots of a couple of individuals for another project so it was very run and gun to say the least.

I actually tried to get them more organized but was paying more attention to the time than the group which was an error on my part. #30 and the girl to her left were supposed to have been holding their balls with both hands like they were trying to crush them which is why the extra space was there to start with. I honestly had not noticed that they didn't stick with that pose until you pointed it out. I also repositioned #31 three times to deal with the hot spot on her face and every time she would turn straight back at the camera.

Thanks again for pointing out the details that could have made this better. A much better learning experience for everyone, me included.

Thanks for taking this in the manner in which it was meant. Its a great photo.

Its so hard working for groups like this. The girls get bored so easily. I have a buddy who shoots high school basketball who, when things get slow, tells the girls "OK, this next shot is for the NCAA database." No one ever asks what the heck that might be, but the girls sure get serious for some reason!

I think you did well over all also Kevin and won't re-hash what has been said. I know how difficult these are and the million things that you have to look for before snapping the photos. Not to mention these type of shots are hell on the kids that just want to get the hell out of there and play some VB.