By NYIP Staff on January 12th, 2012
"Be the ball!"
Ah, that sage advice offered by Chevy Chase in one of our all time favorite movies, Caddyshack, should be kept in mind by photographers who hoist a camera on the links.
Here's more on how to take the best pictures of golf pros or just your friends in the senior or retirement golf leagues you participate in.
In a nutshell, sports photography is tough. While there are lots of great sports photos published, the average newspaper is full of mediocre sports photos nearly every day. The reason that sports photography can be tough is because it's hard to get a good photograph of action in most sports.
That's the bad news about golf photography. The worse news is that golf is one of the hardest sports to photograph. There's no physical contact between players, the course is tremendous and the ball is tiny and travels very rapidly through the air. It's hard to get a good angle to take golf photos without impairing the golfer's concentration or risking getting conked by an errant drive.
Taking good golf pictures is hard. As NYIP photography course students have learned, we say "If it's hard, that's terrific!" Because if it's hard, most people won't do it, and therefore the benefits and rewards will flow to those that do. With those words of encouragement, let's turn to the job at hand and offer some golf photo tips.
The photographs you can take on the golf course can be broken into several distinct types:
The basic action photos you see in all types of golf photography are "big swing" pictures of golfers driving off the tee or hitting long shots in the fairway; players blasting out of sand traps and other hazards; and finally, putting on the green.
Golf photography offers up lots of opportunities to photograph players reacting to their own shot or someone else's. Finally, we can take "location" portraits of golfers and record some of the scenery on the course.
"Be the ball!"
Ah, that sage advice offered by Chevy Chase in one of our all time favorite movies, Caddyshack, should be kept in mind by photographers who hoist a camera on the links.
Here's more on how to take the best pictures of golf pros or just your friends in the senior or retirement golf leagues you participate in.
In a nutshell, sports photography is tough. While there are lots of great sports photos published, the average newspaper is full of mediocre sports photos nearly every day. The reason that sports photography can be tough is because it's hard to get a good photograph of action in most sports.
That's the bad news about golf photography. The worse news is that golf is one of the hardest sports to photograph. There's no physical contact between players, the course is tremendous and the ball is tiny and travels very rapidly through the air. It's hard to get a good angle to take golf photos without impairing the golfer's concentration or risking getting conked by an errant drive.
Taking good golf pictures is hard. As NYIP photography course students have learned, we say "If it's hard, that's terrific!" Because if it's hard, most people won't do it, and therefore the benefits and rewards will flow to those that do. With those words of encouragement, let's turn to the job at hand and offer some golf photo tips.
The photographs you can take on the golf course can be broken into several distinct types:
The basic action photos you see in all types of golf photography are "big swing" pictures of golfers driving off the tee or hitting long shots in the fairway; players blasting out of sand traps and other hazards; and finally, putting on the green.
Golf photography offers up lots of opportunities to photograph players reacting to their own shot or someone else's. Finally, we can take "location" portraits of golfers and record some of the scenery on the course.
Before we look at each type of golf photo, it is essential that you remember that regardless of the kind of picture you want to make – golf photographs or any other sports photographs – following NYIP's Three Guidelines for Better Photographs will determine whether or not your photo succeeds.
As regular readers should know by now, NYIP's Three Guidelines are best recounted in the form of these simple questions you should ask yourself before pressing the shutter on your camera:
Guideline One: What is the subject of my photograph?
Guideline Two: How can I give emphasis to my subject?
Guideline Three: What can I do to simplify my photograph?
Particularly with a subject such as golf, the action of your photo is likely to be so minimal that if there are distractions they will seriously interfere with your sports photo. Look at the example below.
For your perusal here is a very well done YouTube video on How to Take Great Photographs. Enjoy :-)
John
Article source here:
https://www.nyip.edu/photo-articles/archive/how-to-take-great-golf-photos