Though photography as a whole is a passion of mine, I really enjoy sports photography.

I have several favorite topics when shooting photos, but there’s something special about stopping action in a shot. Capturing a ball in midair or an athlete doing something really wild makes it even better. Though I love video, I’ll take a great action shot over the video any day.

Recently, I’ve shot a few softball and lacrosse games of a local college.

This isn’t a how-to post when it comes to action photography. I have to keep learning just as much as anybody else. I know I can continue to get better and that’s why I try and shoot sports photos whenever I have a chance.

The thing is trying to think a little differently. Not just the pitching or swinging photos in softball or baseball, but something different.

Baseball and softball can be tough to shoot at times. There’s the issue of timing when the ball is going to be in play somewhere, or being thrown, or being hit. There are times when you focus on somebody and nothing happens. But there’s so much more going on. It’s a true game of reaction when it comes to photos.

With all that in mind, below are some of my favorites I’ve taken of the local college and their spring sports I saw, as well as some thoughts on my process of getting them.

I actually haven’t processed all my photos from the games, so I’m going with ones I have done and have already uploaded to Flickr.

1. Quick to react

Even if you focus on a certain player or spot during a game, you still have to be quick to react. Sometimes you can fire off several shots and still not get the ball or good action. Shots like this one really work out well because it goes beyond the norm. This is one of my favorite shots because of her focus, as well as the bouncing ball — where you even see the shadow.

Stay focused.

2. Other things make good images

The photo of a sporting event doesn’t have to always be on the action. Look around. Are there celebrations? People being upset? With those two, you can capture emotion. This shot is something I liked. I knew this umpire, so I was going to get a few shots of him. This one, in between innings, really worked out for me as he flipped the ball up and down.

In between innings.

3. Close in on the action

No matter what anybody says, I’m a firm believer that one’s whole body doesn’t have to be in the image. Take, for example, this one. What more would it add if their legs and feet were in the shot? The action would be more of a wider shot. In this one, you can see the action, the expressions and the ball (in the netting of the one stick).

Battling

4. Shoot from the front or, at worst, side

Nobody wants to see an image behind the action. It’s one of the biggest issues I find with disc golf images. Try and keep it so you capture the action and, hopefully, the faces of those involved. In this one, the Delhi (gold) player is coming in on the action, but the shooter from the other team is coming almost right at me. This shot would have been worthless if taken from behind. Instead, it’s one of my favorites from the season because of the action and where the ball is.

Shooting

5. Anticipate

Sports photography is all about knowing what could happen and where. If you think something might happen, focus on that spot. Especially in baseball and softball. You can only take so many images of pitching and hitting, so look around. Is there a chance somebody could steal? Focus on that base. Is a certain player hitting one way? Stay looking at that spot. It’s all anticipation. This shot was one where I had a feeling there would be a steal coming. As it was, I snapped a whole series of shots, but this one really shows the thought of anticipation with the dirt flying up on the slide.

Safe

Sports is a great theme when it comes to photography. And the best part of it is it really challenges your skills and your ability. One thing I would recommend, no matter what, is to familiarize yourself with the sport you might shoot. You don’t have to be an expert, but knowing a bit about the sport will help you react, anticipate and find the good spots when it comes to shooting. Most of all, have fun with it. I have a ton of interests when it comes to photography, but sports images are still the ones that make me get excited more than most because there’s a better chance to really get that “one” shot.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

My noodle has been speaking lately — and it’s asking why I haven’t written one of these in a while?

My answer? No idea.

So, here it is. For those new to the blog, this is basically a spot where I’ll write about some things that have happened or caught my eye recently, but didn’t really work as its own blog post.

For the first time in a few years, our softball season ended before reaching the league final. We’ve won our league the past two seasons, but this one was a bit of a struggle. Despite a large roster, we had issues getting some people there at times.

No three-peat for us this year.

The problem with that?

We never really had the same lineup or people in the same positions. Though we had a lot of good players, we had to move people around. That makes things hard.

Still, we finished quite strong.

We earned the fourth seed in the playoffs and opened with a 2-games-to-1 series win over the fifth seed. We then took on the top seed, who we beat last year in the final.

In the opener, we played well. Our top pitcher got hurt and I had to finish. We ended up losing, unfortunately, in a game we played really well.

I pitched Game 2 and did as well as I’ve done in a long time. We ended up losing, 5-3.

Though not all their faults, the umpiring we had in these two games was downright awful. It seems like that was a theme for most of the year. Both teams suffered from it, too. The second game really hammered us, though, as we lost three close plays where I think he was dead wrong. He also threw one of our players out of the game for “throwing a bat.” The umpire didn’t even see it. He heard the bat clip the fence on the toss (and it was a toss, I was right next to it). The guy was downright awful and was for most of the year.

Look, bad umpiring is one thing. It’s at all levels. All I ask is to be consistent. If you strike zone is a shoebox, fine. Make it both ways. These things can’t — and shouldn’t — change every inning. But with some umps, they do. And for the money they are being paid, there should be some accountability. The semifinals of the playoffs should have the two best umps, not some of the worst. We got that in our two games and I’m sure the other team will agree.

In the end, it’s all good. We still won 10 games, found some new players for the future and have an idea on how to move forward. I’m sure we’ll be right back in the thick of things next year.

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When it comes to geocaching, I’ve gone through several phases.

The excitement of being new, the numbers hound, someone who chased first-to-finds to now, where I kind of just dig playing the game and having fun.

One thing I’ve always done, however, is plan when it comes to a bigger trip. This, too, has gone through phases. I used to be an in-depth planner and then it got to the point where I basically wrote down caches in the best order to grab to be efficient.

Every once in a while, though, I go back to the in-depth planning. This upcoming weekend is one of those times.

My current Delorme map — which will hopefully be filled in much more by the end of the weekend!

Four of us are going on an insane trip through the top of New York to fill in squares for the Delorme Challenge. For those who don’t geocache, the Delorme Challenge is based up on the New York  Atlas and Gatetteer, which is published by Delorme. In the atlas, the state is broken down into 80 squares. Your job is to find one cache in each square. Once you do, you get the coordinates to the Delorme final so you can go find that cache. My hope is to make that my 3,000th find, of which I am approaching.

At this moment, I have 63 of 80 pages filled on the Delorme map.

As long as nothing goes wacky, by the time this trip is done sometime Saturday night, I should have filled in 11 more squares and will be a mere trip to the Buffalo area to get six more squares to finish it up.

At the same time, I’ll be getting all the counties I need (sans the Buffalo-area ones) for the New York Counties Challenge.

The three others on the trip will also be filling in squares and counties, but on different levels. Some have more and some have fewer to get. We’ll also be taking a quick trip into Vermont for a few caches.

In the end, I had to go in-depth because with a trip that will eclipse 600 miles and be for more than 12-15 hours, we needed to make it as efficient as possible. We have some good caches on the list and we have a lot of quickies, too. But in the end, it will make for a memorable and fun trip with caching friends. I’ll be blogging more about this next week.

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Speaking of geocaching, I’ve recently gone on a hiding spree. I archived some of my older caches and decided to place some new ones. Another cacher in a town not far from here has placed a whole heap, too. Hopefully with all of these new caches, some cachers will come our way to make some finds.

One of my recent hides.

See, this area isn’t easily hit by major highways and such. We’re in a rural area, so sometimes people don’t want to come here and find caches. I know one cacher who basically refuses to come to this area because all the roads are winding and such.

Their loss.

On top of the ones I’ve recently placed, I have several more to put out. I just need to find where to place them.

The hides have been fun to do. I like writing the descriptions and I like getting the notices when people find them all. It’s kind of a cool thing to know people are out finding the ones you hid and are enjoying them.

I have two caches, specifically, I need to get out. One is one I got at a cache I found and will be a “spawn” cache and the other is one I received from a fellow cacher when out in Chicago in 2011. These caches are his signature items. He gave me two, so I want to get one placed with the other remaining in my collection of sig items.

Further, I just have some other lock-n-lock containers I want to put out there!

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As many of you know, I dig attending independent wrestling shows. One, it’s great action and usually better than what you see on television. And when it’s not better, it way worse, which makes it fun that way.

I know how hot it was for three of us to watch this card — I can’t imagine what it was like in the ring performing!

One company we watch often is 2CW, based out of Syracuse. They always put on a great show and this past Friday was no exception.

Except for one thing — it was hot!

The company returned to the Pastime Athletic Club in Syracuse for what seems like it will be the final show at this building, which is affectionately called the “2CW Arena.”

Herein lies the issue — it was hot as can be outside. Inside, which was basically a small gym, had the ring, wrestling, probably 400 fans inside and… no air conditioning.

Holy cow was it hot!

With the action going on, it got hotter as the night went on, too. It easily had to be above 100 inside.

We stayed for the whole card because we wanted to see the main event, which featured former WWE superstar John Morrison against one of the top indy stars, Sami Callihan. The match didn’t disappoint. Overall, the card as per normal, was solid. It was worth going to and watching.

I just wish it had been cooler!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook! 

This post is written in conjunction with the 30 Days of Writing, a blog challenge devised by Nicky and Mike at “We Work For Cheese.” I’ll be participating throughout the month of June. If interested, you can see my post with the details of the challenge. 

Please note that some of these posts will be serious, some will be normal, and some will be an attempt at humor. This one is a little of everything! 

First place.

For those who compete, whether it be in sports or something else, first place is obviously the ultimate goal.

I’m a softball nut. I’ve been playing for nearly two decades and have run a team that entire time. I was still in high school when we started things, so needless to say, we weren’t the best.

Our first Oneonta championship -- 2010.

See, softball and baseball are two different worlds and it sometimes takes time to learn the difference. The swing, the ball and everything else.

We had some tough years early. Soon, however, we became a more powerful team. A contender each year. Our first title should have come in the mid-1990s, but we found a way to give it away each year.

Finally, we won the coveted Brookside championship in 2001. The Brookside title was our local league, one many of us had grown up around. The championship trophy was wood-based with a removable pewter bowl — much like the idea of the Stanley Cup.

That league, unfortunately, soon folded.

We moved to another area league and stayed strong. We made the final several times, but fell each time. We broke through in 2010 and won our first title there. We repeated in 2011.

First place is a great thing. That is for sure.

But the journey getting there and seeing what you can do is so much more of the game.

During my lifetime, I haven’t been on many winning teams. In little league, I won the first year I played and the last year I played. But our “little league” wasn’t a sanctioned league. It was basically pee-wee baseball. I still have those championship plaques though. (My father was one of the coaches on the first one — kind of funny as even he would have told you that he didn’t know much about baseball to coach it!)

In high school, I played soccer and baseball. Neither team was that good. Though the baseball team didn’t suck, we were just in a league full of awesome teams. Soccer was a new sport to our school when I played, so it was the learning experience.

Then there was softball.

Championships are often taken for granted. So when we have good teams, I like to try and do some photos with them throughout the year. Action shots, candids — whatever. The idea is that if we do win a championship, it’s nice to have some other shots from the season.

Though we strive to win, the reality is this game goes beyond wins and losses. We’re all friends who love to play and love to compete. And, in the end, we don’t get paid for it. We play it because we love to. And, on another note, it’s a good way to get out and get some exercise.

A couple of images from our 2010 championship season:

The big guy pitching.

Big swing.

End of an inning.

Ready to go!

To the victor go the spoils -- one of our player's wives made these for the team party. Yum!

In 2011, I didn’t take as many photos. It’s not always easy to worry about photos when you are playing and such. Even when I am playing as the designated hitter, I don’t always think to take the camera out (despite, often, me bringing it to the bench).

Our season this year has started off slow. We’re definitely getting a little older and it shows. The younger teams are starting to have their feel of things. Right now, we’re mid-pack.

Will we win the coveted third straight championship this year? Who knows. We have a lot of work to do if so. But, if we don’t, we’ll have a good run, either way. We usually play well come playoffs.

First place, after all, is the ultimate goal. Only time will tell if we keep up our run.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

It turns out, there’s life beyond disc golf!

Let me clarify that. Back in March, I started a second blog. That has somewhat hurt this blog a little. Not a ton, but it’s made it so I don’t publish a new post here every day. That’s not the biggest worry in the world, but it has come to the idea that I have had some issues with said other blog.

See, that blog — which is all about disc golf — has become pretty popular. In two full months, we’ve averaged more than 12,500 page views per month. For being a blog without any advertising and revenue, that’s pretty solid. We’ve gained many readers and have several writers, all working to build a better disc golf community.

I love disc golf, but with a blog and playing and all, it had taken over a portion of my life. I needed that to change so I don't get burned out from it!

What I love about it is we’ve worked as a group to make a great little spot for disc golf news articles and such. We give things in an entertaining way and, usually, with a journalism twist to things. We’ve done some really cool things, such as a women’s week and our weekly polls and such. It’s been fun.

But, like anything else, if you are pushing out a lot of things, you get burned out. I’ve been having a tough time with it lately because I feel like it’s taking up a ton of time and I’m trying to keep fun in it. We make no money on it and we do it in our spare time, so I need to make sure it doesn’t get me. As I said, thankfully we have a few writers and a few more have indicated they want to join. It’s a good group.

Alas, it’s kind of hit me over here with creative. I’m trying to find my “thang” again over here. I want it to be as it used to be. Fun and a way to relieve stress. Being I’m still in a job hunt (which takes up much of my days), I would like to be able to mix some fun here and not just at the other blog. I need this place to write some potpourri and enjoy it again.

That means it’s back to the old — topics ranging from real life to geocaching to pro wrestling to baseball to book/movie reviews to whatever else I can come up with. Earl will be coming back soon and I have some more players to work on for the HooHaa 9.

I’m going to push to get back to some fun here. If you have some blog ideas/topics you think you’d like to read about on the blog, let me know. It’s time to hit the idea notebook and see what I can come up with!

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So speaking of geocaching, allow me to share this story.

There’s a new cache series in my area. It’s 12 caches total, including the “final” cache. It’s in a state forest land and follows trails (though many of the caches you have to go hacking and bushwhacking off the trails to get). It was a hot, and somewhat humid, day.

I was meeting up with a fellow cachers, who was probably going to have to come and go once or twice to finish. Still, my goal was to complete the series that day. By looking at the map, it appears the caches go in a loop and would bring you back to your car.

Note this is not one of the geocaches we found, but rather just a photo to show that fun is finding these items!

As I arrived to meet the fellow cacher, he says “Why don’t you ride with me and when I have to bold, we’ll go and then when we get back, we can park at the other parking area.”

So, I agreed.

What followed was something out a Keystone Cops type situation.

We did the lower loop of caches and had to decide how to get back to the car the quickest. Caching pal says to continue up trail and there’s a cross over. Alas, nothing came after another nearly half mile. That made us turn around and go back to the roadside.

From there, he bolted the road to grab the car (and I waited as I wasn’t going to keep up with him on this one). While I waited, with an amazing full service phone, I created the spot “Lost” on Foursquare and checked in.

We headed back to his area, where we picked up his daughter and into another town to drop her off to a birthday party. Then back to his place to get his son and do Round 2 of the caches.

We started at the upper parking area, got confused, found another trail and got an idea of the cache layout. With it being hot and on another time schedule, frustration set in early as we couldn’t figure which way to go.

See, I had planned on looping. By not looping, I had no idea where I was as I don’t know this area!

But, we were on target now and we started to cross off the caches. Then we had to go pick up his daughter. And I hadn’t figured all the coords out yet… yikes! Little did I know if I had plugged them in, it wouldn’t have required the third trip.

In the end, as I noted to the fellow cacher, I should have kept my car and could have continued on the path if he needed to go back-and-forth. But, to be fair, it also gave me a fun piece to this blog!

Overall, the series was a heap of fun. We actually might have walked more by doing it the way we did it because we went back and forth to things instead of just going around everything! And, in the end, we got some good stories, had a lot of fun and really enjoyed it, which is what this game is all about, right?

****

Do you ever get into a text conversation with a friend and it takes an odd turn?

It seems to happen to me too often.

Anyway, a conversation that started about bike racing to other sports to sports camps. Out of the blue, I decided to change it up a bit.

Me: I race turtles.

Friend: I thought you like crawfish?

Me: Turtle racing is big money.

Friend: On or out of water.

Me: Road racing.

Me: I once held the record for the 100 meters with a turtle I trained. Crossed in 14.3.

Friend: Is that hours?

Me: Days.

Me: Most people leave. I stay. Even if my turtle loses, I win.

Friend: That’s determination!

Random, I know. But it gave me one heck of a good laugh, that’s for sure!

****

I think it’s time for a Facebook purge.

Every once in a while, it’s worth going through my Facebook contacts and deleting some people. Let’s be honest, there are people on everybody’s Facebook that probably can be purged.

I noticed several people who have disabled or gotten rid of their Facebook, but they still remain “friends.” I have also noticed people I probably haven’t talked to in years. It just seems silly to keep so many. To be fair, I actually do stay in contact with many of the people on my Facebook. Still, I’d like to trim the numbers. I’ll have to see what I can do to bring the numbers down a little.

****

Softball is supposed to start today.

The weather forecast doesn’t look perfect, but we have hope. There is a chance of showers in the morning and then thunderstorms in the afternoon/evening. So, it’s going to be shaky, but hopefully we can get it in and get the season underway.

Another year of softball starts tonight!

We won our second straight league championship last year and this year is going to likely be even harder as a few teams beefed up a little. And that’s what softball should be about. Several good teams battling it out. That makes it fun. I look forward to a strong season.

We’re 35-4 over the past couple of years with, for the most part, the same guys. Other teams are getting better and younger teams (thankfully) are joining the league. So, if we have a few more losses this year, it happens. Hopefully in the end, we’ll have earned our third straight title. But you can never guarantee that to happen.

I’m stoked that we’ve won two straight. Because in this game, teams can win at any point. Figure this — in some 20-plus years of playing softball, I’ve been on teams that have won championships four times. Once in a league I only played part time back in the mid 90s. We won one title in the old Delhi league, which I’m thankful we actually won. Then these past two. We’ve been to finals many times, but finishing it off isn’t easy.

So, the season starts today (hopefully). We’ll see how it goes and check back in at the end of the year!

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NOTE TO FELLOW BLOGGERS: I am trying to finish a survey I started a few months ago. It’s basically about the male/female blogging tendencies etc. I need a handful of bloggers for each sex to fill things out as I want to try and have an even number of each.

I will be taking some comments and using them in a blog post and everyone who participates will get a link back to their blog.

Please comment here or e-mail me if interested in participating. The survey shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes or so to fill out.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook! 

My external hard drive is starting to fill up. That pretty much means I need to start shifting some things and deleting, or I might not have room for a lot of photos.

I have three external hard drives, but two of them are full and the third, which is a terabyte, doesn’t have much left. I know there’s a lot of waste on all three of them. So, over the next few weeks, it’s my hope to really clear a lot of space. In the end, I’d like to have the TB drive be all photos only — so I can get an online backup service as well.

Anyway, as I do that, I got peeking at some older photos. And that got me interested in looking at some older photos on Flickr, too. So, in this post, I am going to share some of my favorite (or not so favorite) photos from the Flickr archives. Things are going to be random. I am going to hit a few random pages and snag a photo of those pages and share them here.

I’m hoping to head out and shoot some fireworks tonight, so if things come out as I hope, I’ll look to share what I did and such with the images next Friday.

Page 40

Ahhh, this past September. We got some unseasonably warm weather and this page was basically filled with sports photos — a softball tournament and some flag football. Here’s one of those shots.

Foul ball!

 Page 67

I had been catching up on posting some images, including from my trip to Ireland in 2010. Those photos were on this page.

Good advice!

Page 94

From April of last year, my trip to the Washington DC area and Arlington National Cemetery.

The unknown plots are extremely moving. There are far too many.

Page 123

From November 2010. One of my favorite disc golf photos.

My faithful buzzz.

Page 149

Ahhh, the Ireland trip. This wasn’t long after getting back. This was a shot I took in Howth.

My mother and brothers at Howth Harbor.

Page 165

The Oneonta Outlaws. Love some of the shots on this page.

Pitch coming in.

Page 187

Out on a photo day with a former co-worker. Watershed property…

Stay off!

Page 204

This big snowstorm at the end of February 2010 shut down local schools and even the local college. A great day to be out taking photos!

Snow!

Page 235

Geno’s Steaks, at night. December, 2008.

All lit up!

Page 270 (last page for now)

Downtown Montreal at night. I took this photo from Mont Royal in August of 2007.

Montreal!

I hope you enjoyed a slight trip through the archives with me. I’m sure as I get going through these external drives, I’ll be sharing more — and uploading a lot more to Flickr. I want to get a lot more of my photos on Flickr and put them together as sets. That way, they are there for all to see!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook by clicking the button on the right side of the page!