I can honestly say that I can't list bowling among my favorite sports to shoot. I've seen a lot of sports, and a lot of things you can barely call sports, and in some way I've liked
them all. Not bowling. No bowling alley is lit well. There's little drama, little action, little emotion.
Until Tuesday night.
I was assigned to shoot the Mankato East and West adaptive bowling meet against Austin Tuesday night. I had photographed some of these kids before, so I knew in some respect I could throw at least one of the bowling stereotypes I had out the window: There would be excitement.
These kids are excited to be bowling competitively. They smile all the time. High fives abound whether they get a strike, make a spare, or get a pair of gutter balls. What I didn't know was Sam Wright was on his way to putting up some big numbers, and a lot of Xs.
As I was shooting some of the bowlers from West I heard a huge cheer from the East lanes. Not unusual, except I had already heard it a few times recently. When I looked up at the scoreboard, Sam had already gotten a Turkey (three strikes in a row). Knowing how happy I am to get two in a row, I decided to watch and hope he would maybe get another.
He did. And another. And another. Each time his celebration got more demonstrative, more excited. Sam's high fives to his coach and teammates got more exuberant. It's rare to get a second chance at a celebration photo, much less a third or fourth. It gave me a chance to figure out an angle where I would see his face, his teammates and his lane devoid of pins, and figure out how to light it so I could see all of that.
1 comment:
I love this idea! All readers usually get about a photo is the cutline; the who, what and where. It seems to me that the how and the why of the photo are neglected. Sometimes those things are easy to discern but it will be great getting this inside story on the photos themselves.
Post a Comment