Evolution of a Football Mom

football 009
Originally uploaded by magscrafts

Ok, I will admit that I generally have hated the term "Soccer Mom" and have pondered the difference between a soccer mom and the mother of a kid that plays soccer. I guess the difference is subtle, but I think we moms can cling to it in an attempt to maintain our own identity and sense of self when we spend so many hours taxi-ing kids and watching games and being "Steve's mom".

This is my son's third season in football. He is a huge kid- the sort that makes everyone ask immediately "Do you play football?" I have for all this time tried to repeat the mantra to myself "He's only 13" or whatever age he was at the time. This was an effort to avoid being sucked into the high pressure mentality that goes along with so many organized team sports. Oh, he stood straight up? Well, he is only 13. His guy got right past him? Well' he is only 13. Honestly, based on the stories we moms share while we wait at practice about the idiosyncracies of our mostly 13 year old boys, it is quite a miracle that they manage to accomplish anything!

Yet if you listen closely to the sideline talk at the games, there is a serious sense of urgency. It is the same sort of feeling I got when as the mom of a preschooler I was with other parents who were all worried about whether their 3 year old was going to get into the best preschool. There are high school coaches visiting these games scouting the kids. These 13 year olds face the fact that what happens in this one game can effect them for years to come. (I won't even go into the whole threat of injury thing, that scares me too much!)

So at yesterdays game, something "clicked" and my son was suddenly having his best game ever. Because of sickness and injury of some teammates, he was playing a position he had never played before, and he was good at it! I found my usually mild mannered self screaming "Get him!" and high fiving with other parents. It was actually fun at the time. THe problem is, eventually it occurs to me that the "him" in "get him" is some other mom's baby. I think maybe I am not cut out to be a football mom, and it's going to be a bumpy ride!

Follow up: Outdoor Photo Success!

Well, a vast improvement anyway! I started the day with my exposure set on zero. I thought the pregame photos turned out pretty well. I was in the shade, the players in the sun:

Then I tried the same shot at -1 exposure:

Then the game started and I took some action shots. At this point I had gone back to the zero exposure setting:

I especially liked this one, where the tackled player is laying in the cloud of dust! (he was fine, no worries): Not sure if my kid (#77) was in on it or just walked up to look at him later. One insight I had today is that it is impossible for me to watch the game and take pictures at once, and also that I tend to get shots just before or just after the big events happen. As a result I only took about 10 pictures and then got back to watching the game (plus I was water mom so I had to fill the bottles throughout the game.)

Towards the end I tried a few more shots with the exposure at -1 again:

Those were even a little better, and I want to try going all the way to -2 for the bright sunlight pictures on my next attempt. Also I would like to go back to trying out the sports action photo setting, which takes three pictures in succession, then I might get the right moments!

Overall, I am still not likely to be voted team photographer, but I am going to be able to get some photos that my son can look back at and remember his football days, which was all I wanted.

I Need Photo Help!

OK, I like to think that I have nearly mastered the whole product photography thing. (Just humor me here!) My major issue now is trying to get photos of people- mainly my family. In any kind of bright light, the color white gets oversaturated bigtime. Here are some examples:


Here is a photo I took of my son at football:

See how bright the white is? It gets worse when they put on their white helmets, it is like they have auras or something! See how the little kids behind him are little white blurry blobs? Sometimes everybody looks like that!

When the sun went behind clouds it got a little better:

Unfortunately, with games mostly at 2pm, the odds of catching this perfect lighting are slim. I have had this problem repeatedly and it is making me nuts! Today I was trying to use the sports photo setting on my camera, which is a Nikon Coolpix L3.

This is a picture from last season taken with the normal settings, no flash, all the adjustments set on auto:

Does anyone have any advice for how to fix this problem?