Rec. League Volleyball

I recently photographed a recreational league volleyball game for Denton Parks & Recreation. The purpose of the photos is to help promote the rec league volleyball games held at two different locations on the same night. The department is trying to build up a collection of stock photos for multiple programs so they can better promote what they have to offer to people in the community. Tomorrow I will be shooting a youth basketball program.






For the photographers wanting to know how:
To shoot this game I had to use strobes. Since I only own two 8oo watt Alien Bee's I decided to cross light the court and bounce the light off the ceiling. By doing this I was able to get fairly even light at 1/250th and 4/4.0 at ISO 400. Initially I tried using my sports reflectors but the light fall was to shallow and was only lighting the far sides of the court, so I opted for my 7" reflectors to toss plenty of light into the ceiling.

The down side of the cross lighting is that I could only shoot in a direction opposite of my lights. So, I was limited to which side I could shoot the net from, but I could shoot both sides at ground level in the middle half of the court easily. It was the most effective way available to shoot the game. I didn't take an ambient light reading, but I am sure it would not have been bright enough to freeze action.

Bellow is a photo of one of my light stands in the corner of the gym. I took the photo from just in front of my other light. So, you get an idea of how my setup was. Both strobes pointed up into the ceiling to the opposing side of the court.


View of one strobe on a light stand pointed into the ceiling across court. The light stands were about 10-12ft high.


This wide angle view gives you a better idea of the light coverage I got by cross lighting. Not bad eh?

As you may have noticed work has been pretty slow lately. I was talking to another photographer friend yesterday who has also had a slow start to the year. Normally he will work on about eight big shoots a month, so far he has only worked two all year. Hopefully this is not a sign of a sliding economy. I have a few weddings booked this spring, but my first one is not until March. So, things will likely stay a bit slow until then.

I am also looking at making some career changes as well. I have also been considering moving to Colorado, or maybe even Utah or Oregon. Hopefully this year will have some exciting changes in store. If anything exciting does happen I will be sure to share it here.