Football Under The Lights

I’ve never photographed a game before where both teams were named the same.  Until tonight.

I had an opportunity this evening to photograph prep football under familiar conditions—mercury vapor lights.  Being able to shoot high-speed black & white, push it in development was always a better way for me to get action than using flash.  While sometimes necessary, flash has the unfortunate side-effect of destroying the mood.  I do my best to avoid relying on it.

I shot at 3200 and used the PRE white balance setting on the Nikon D300.  It cleaned up the color considerably.  The grass looks perhaps a tad too yellow but that’s the saturated results I’m getting from this camera even on the standard setting.  I often will split my time shooting both in front of the play as well as behind.  Once in a while you get a great sack, a pass reception or in this case an interception.  The defender juggled the ball as the two players crashed to the ground and managed to hang on to take over possession.