More is more – going Reels
One never knows what you come home with from a game or event – unless you have specs from a client of what exactly do you need to get… and maybe for me, and probably other creative people, it is the games/events when you are almost there just for fun. That these are the games where you get the new ideas of … ‘hey, I could try this for a client – and it seems to work’.
The fact of not having the stress or pressure to get 300 photos, get every player with the ball, in action, in isolation.. when you just point the camera at the action on the court.. and see what you come up with. Sometimes it is a fire highlight reel, sometimes a single great play.. but whatever it is.. it tends to be different from what you are used to. Maybe one uses a different camera, different lens, different setting..
Last night at the MU18 game (warm-up for the U18 EuroBasket) Finland vs Georgia – first of all, I missed the first six minutes of the game as I was in my camper watching the final climb of the day in Tour de France … sometimes you just got to put priority on things 😉
But at the game – I knew I already have a ton of photos of this team, so I didn’t really need them – which meant that after shooting stills for a while and knowing I had ‘enough’ for the report. I started to switch between video and still – yes, you always miss something when dual-shooting. But if you don’t NEED to capture anything certain, why would you not wanna try dual-shooting… so, a game where I capture both still and video it was.
With Reels – you really need to only capture about 30-40 seconds of GOOD material – which also means different material. Not just lay-up and after lay-up… try to get some emotions, coaches talking, time outs… crowds (OK – difficult at these games.. but sometimes there are crowds at games).. just go with what you got.
Also – doing games and talking to players.. it can give you unexpected income streams .. like when a player comes to you at the end of the game and asks if you got the airball freethrow of certain player.. and offers you €500 for it 😉 Haven’t actually ever tested IF the players would come up with the cash for something like this..
In the end – I came up with probably about 200 ‘keeper’ images from the game – a 90 second game highlight Reel – and I was gonna do an interview, but started to lose my voice, so leaving that until next weekend.
