All Action

I’ve been lucky to have opportunities for sports action over the years. I don’t know if I’ll be doing so much sports photography in future – I have ideas of making changes – so I thought I’d put together some of my better action images to date.

With sports photography preparation is particularly important, scouting around the venue to check out the where the best action takes place, checking the direction the light is coming from, and looking for the best positions to get a harmonising background.

Once I decide on camera settings, I’ll find I can take hundreds of images over an hour or two. I might get just a handful of ‘good’ images. You get to be quite picky.

There is definitely a great variety of sports available within Ayrshire, including a Motocross track, where occasionally there’s quad bike racing as in the top image. Very occasionally it features motorbike / sidecar combos, which is amazing to watch. Here’s two women riders enjoying one of the jumps.

The nearby coast is another place where I can find action – windsurfers, kite surfers regularly – and here are some jet ski guys just enjoying a marvellous sunny day and a calm sea

And one of those kite surfers getting some nice waves last winter.

Of course, I’ve tried photographing team sports. I struggle with football – getting good clear meaningful images is really hard. But, there’s a bit more predictability with rugby, and you get to know which way the ball is going to move across the field. Telephoto lenses and cropping to close in on the action seems to help.

Each year there is usually at least one major cycling event at the Irvine Beach Park. This next image shows what I said about choosing the background. By getting close to the track and looking down the hill while leaning over those ugly course tapes, I’ve included the riders following the race leader. I was pretty happy with this composition.

If I get up on particular Sunday mornings I can see some cycle road racing on the quiet roads – all done by well-organised cycling clubs. Up on a bridge over a dual carriage way gives a different aspect.

Around the town, there’s a family friendly 10km running race with many good vantage points and up to 1500 runners joining in in recent years. I’ve nowhere exhausted the range of images that can be taken at this event. This guy, wearing the local rugby team shirt, is really enjoying his run –

There’s even a section for pushing buggies round the course. The couple below win the prize for the highest age range in any team in any sport.

Doesn’t it make you feel you should join in next year? Well, virtually all of these events didn’t take place this year, so let’s hope they all get back to their competitions next year. Let’s hope!

I’ve focussed on sports images on this post, but there’s plenty scope for action outside of sports. I might put something together on that soon, if you like.