Anyone can take a camera, point and shoot.  It takes a little more knowledge and a lot more practice to be good at taking those photos.  The tips below are great for beginning photographers or sports writers who aren’t used to taking their own photos.  What do you look for?  What are some things you should be conscious of?  How should you approach an event?  There are just a few of the subjects found below.

1.  Emotion

Mike Knuble of the Washington Capitals keeps an eye on the clock during the Capitals 3-2 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins on October 13, 2011 at the CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This picture has a lot of intensity to it as the game was heading into overtime. While it hasn't been edited, this is also an example of professional lighting. Despite being inside, everything is bright an clear. (Photo by Kiley Fischer, 2011)

Emotion really might be one of the most important things to capture.  Whether it’s exhaustion, excitement, absolute focus or defeat, the emotion in a picture will make it that much better.

2.  Try to allude to movement

There are situations where a little blur is ok.  Whether it’s a hockey stick blurring on a slap shot or a baseball bat swinging, that little bit of blur on the object lets the audience see motion.  These take a lot of patience.

3.  Understand the game

The more you understand the game, the more you’ll know what to look for.  You’re not going to be pulled out on a shot when a football team has a 3rd and 1 as there more than likely will not be a pass.  Likewise, if you see a hockey team has pulled their goalie, you’ll be looking for two things: the impending 6-on-5 in the offensive zone as well as a breakaway towards the empty net.

Much of this knowledge comes from reading as well as watching.  The longer you spend researching a sport, the better prepared you will be.  The “…for Dummies” book series has cheat sheets on their website as well as books for sale on various sports.

This image by Ezra Shaw of Getty Images is a great example of composition. Everything is balanced and the image itself conveys a point.

4.  Think about composition

Are you highlighting one person or multiple people?  If the answer was “one,” take the photo vertically.  You will be able to isolate that person.  If you want to focus on multiple people such as two hockey players in a fight, shoot horizontally to catch more of the action.

Bob Martin is an award-winning British sports photographer.  He’s covered the Olympics and his work has been published in Sports Illustrated, Time, Newsweek and many others.  Taking a look at his portfolio can give you a better idea of composition to consider.

This image, taken at a Seton Hill University basketball game against Ohio Valley, is an example of two things: an image taken from the vantage point of a fan and terrible focus. This is a view the public would have. They won't want to see the same thing they could see on their own. (Photo by Kiley Fischer, 2011.)

5.  Move around

The readers do not want to see the same angle they saw.  If they wanted that, they would look at their own pictures.  Can you make it to courtside?  Do it.  Are you able to be on the sidelines for the football game?  Go.  Make the photo interesting for your audience.

6.  Focus on faces

Your star basketball player’s emotion isn’t in his jersey number.  Capturing emotion is all about capturing faces.  (Example below.)

Otto Greule Jr of Getty Images made sure to capture the face of Sam Bradford of the St. Louis Rams as he leaves the field after a loss. Imagine if this was the back of a jersey instead. There would be little to no emotion whatsoever.

7.  Focus

It seems like it would be somewhat of a no-brainer, but be sure your photos are in focus.  Your auto-focus (AF) might take a second to catch up with the motion.  In order to make sure you’re hitting your target, start following the subject in advance.  Your AF will have a second to catch up and you should have a focused picture.

8.  Have the right equipment.

You probably use a regular point-and-shoot camera.  While those are fine for a snapshot at an amusement park or a day out, they’re close to useless for good sports photography.  The zoom is usually awful and the quality isn’t much better.  If you can use a better camera, do it.

9.  Watch the game.

The whole idea of a photo is to capture a moment.  Would you rather see the team during a timeout or catch the winning touchdown pass?  You have to pass attention to catch the defining moment.

Also, don’t rely on others to take pictures for you.  Stay for the game.

10.  Pay attention to your lighting.

You won’t always have ideal lighting.  Poor lighting combined with the wrong settings will leave you with a blurry or difficult to see photo.  Many venues will have less than ideal lighting.  Yes, you can edit the photos, but there is only so much you can do.

A lot of this also comes down to the camera.  Don’t try to use your iPhone for a good shot.  However, you can also look at websites such as this for an introduction to solving lighting problems.

How do you transcend the gap between those who breathe sports and those who may only have heard of a touchdown?  The tips below are a starting point for any beginning sports writer.

1.  Read

Look around at other sportswriters and see what they’re doing.  What seems to work for them?  What sets them apart?  Are they being creative?  Don’t feel like you have to be all alone.

ESPN: John Clayton
Yankees baseball: Steven Goldman
NBA: Peter Vecsey
NHL: Adam Proteau

One book that is on my wish list for Christmas this year comes from the Associated Press.  The AP Sports Writing Handbook by Steve Wilson is a fantastic guide to the world of sports writing.

The “…for Dummies” series also has great cheat sheets online as well as books on various sports.

2.  Mix it up

If you’re describing a play-by-play, find other ways to use common terms.  “Scored,” “passed” and “shot” become boring.  Look to see what other writers have used to mix it up.

“Notched” is a common fill-in for “scored” while “shot” can be replaced with the type of shot that was used (wrist shot, slap shot, ect.).

Do not use words such as “kill” or “murder” to express a run-away game.  Perhaps there was a crisis within an organization that would cause those terms to be a touchy subject.  There are plenty of examples of athletes who have died within their careers.

You can, however, use “crush”, “rout” or “annihilate.”

3.  Emotions are key

Play off the emotions of those you’re interviewing.  The same way an emotional picture catches attention, an emotional story will, too.

Jerry Brewer’s article for the Seattle Times takes a game between the Seattle Seahawks and St. Louis Rams and finds a great story about Seattle’s wide receiver, Doug Baldwin.

4.  Keep it simple.  Don’t be too wordy.

Using four words to explain the way a football soared between the goalposts is more than unnecessary.  Keep it short.  This will also help with your total word count.

Saying, “The soaring kick flipped end-over-end as it drifted between the uprights” is unnecessary.

“The extra-point attempt gave the team the single point needed to take the lead” work as well as just saying, “The kick soared through the goalposts.”

5.  You have to be objective

The way you write an impartial account in a news story is the same way you write a sports story.  You might hate a team with everything you have, but you cannot let that show…even if they obliterate your favorite team.

While I can’t find any blatant examples of bias, Harrison Mooney’s blog with the Vancouver Sun has a fantastic post regarding the bias in the 2011 Stanley Cup Final as well as the 2009 Super Bowl.

6.  The inverted pyramid counts for sports writers, too.

Don’t let what you’ve learned about news writing disappear.  When you’re writing a recap make sure the important things (the score, who scored them and any potential records) are at the beginning.

Ex: “Sidney Crosby led the Penguins to a 5-0 win, scoring two goals and two assists in his first game back against the New York Islanders Monday night.  Marc-Andre Fleury notched his 21st career shutout.”

7.  Write for your audience

You might hope that your audience knows as much as you do, but you’re the expert.  Be sure to make things easy to understand.

“One of the back four sent a chip down the pitch before a lofted cross from a forward resulted in a goal.”

Anyone who isn’t well versed in soccer will have no idea what you just said.

“A defenseman kicked a short pass down the field before a long pass from a forward resulted in a goal.”

8.  Know what’s going on.

Even if you don’t understand the particular game you’re covering, at least look up common terms or penalties.  You wouldn’t ask Ben Roethlisberger about his record-speed slap shot or Alexander Ovechkin how it felt to score a homerun.

A great place to start is to glance over the rules for the leagues.  You’ll have a general understanding of what’s going on and you’ll be able to more accurately describe what’s going on.

Below are the rules for the big four major league sports.  Other rulebooks (NCAA based on sport, Major League Lacross, ect.) can be found online by searching “[sport] rule book.”  Make sure you find the rules on an official site run by the league as to not be led astray.

NFL
NHL
NBA
MLB

9.   Find a way to interest non-sports fans

Try to pull in others, too.  If there’s an angle you can take to a game recap that would interest others as well, do it.

I try not to use hockey too much, but there are such an abundance of stories in the game that it’s hard not to follow by example.

In order to make what would normally be an ordinary game recap interesting, The Canadian Press played off the excitement of something not so ordinary (three goals in six minutes) in a game against the Sharks and Stars.

10.  Not every recap has to be a feature

You have a lead and a nut graf just as you would in a normal news story.  You will have features, but they don’t belong in every single recap.  Did something unusual happen in the game (a player comeback, a milestone, ect)?  A feature would be great in that case.

That being said, this is it.  My final blog portfolio — and entry — of my undergraduate career.  I never thought this day would come.  I had this feeling that the last day of classes would turn into a sort of “Groundhog Day” type scenario for me…which would have caused quite a bit of damage and criminal mischief.

But, here it goes: blog portfolio 4.

Digital artifact:
So, before we get into what’s on this blog, let’s talk about my term project.  I created a Tumblr just for this project and filled it with both a call to arms to end bullying, music, opinions, and positive images.  I had conversations with people about their experiences.  But, most of all, I had a live conversation with a friend about bullying that I turned into a podcast.

Bullying is a subject that really hits home for me.  With my paper and my blog, I wanted to get across the point that bullying crosses demographics, stereotypes, and technology.  Playground taunts aren’t the worst of it anymore.  I’m extremely happy with how much digital artifact came out and I hope others enjoy it.

Depth:
Before you blast me for having a fictional conversation with a Disney character, let me point out that my post involving Patchwork Girl, remixes, and Gaston was actually very in depth.  I also felt as though I drew connections with my post regarding The Three Stigmata of Palmer Edritch.

Interaction:
I won’t even try to yank you around with this.  I wasn’t the best with interaction this time.  I had comments on my Gaston post  as well as my abysmal desperate post about confusion, but I forgot to comment back to continue the conversation.  I am grateful for the comments, though.

Timeliness:
I got my posts in on time. I think this blog portfolio is even early!

Coverage:
I not only had my in-depth posts as mentioned above, I also had a lengthy and reflective post about graduation and growing up.  I still can’t believe it’s all coming to an end.

So that’s it.  That’s my final blog portfolio.  Thank you again to everyone who’s helped me through the last four years, good times and bad.  I’m so grateful and I hope for good things for every single one of you.

Remember to always “Hazard Yet Forward.”

Four years ago when I was in the same position, I was just ready to get out.  All I wanted was to get as far away from the school and town I was leaving behind and never look back.  I didn’t have many friends, and I don’t talk to anyone I graduated with.  We weren’t friends then, why would we be now?

But this is different.  In my four years at SHU, I’ve had amazing friends.  I’ve had a really solid education, and I’ve created memories that will last a lifetime.  There have been so many laughs, hugs, and tears, and I’m going to miss the people I share those memories with deeply.

For the first time in ages, I’m truly happy.  I’m moving to Columbus.  I’m starting a new adventure.  I’m with the most amazing person I’ve ever known.  It’s going to be weird when I’m not starting classes in the fall, but I’m hoping to be doing bigger and better things with my life by then.  I’m ready to move on and start new.  I’m ready to be a real adult.

Part of me still can’t believe college is coming to an end.  The other part of me is so glad to leave it behind.  There are so many people I need to thank for making these some of the best years of my life, but if I were to thank them all individually,  this post would be miles long.  Instead, I’ll make this as simple as possible:

**

Thank you to the lovely J.O.  You’ve been there the longest and I’m going to miss you so, so much.  Thank you for always believing in me and being there no matter how crazy I drove you.  You’re going so, so far.

To J.K.  I never realized while watching Rent freshman year that we would end up being the friends we are.  I can’t wait to see your name in big, bold print some day.

The Original Four.  You guys are all so talented and so, so smart.  I can’t wait to hear all about your adventures.  You’re all going to be huge, I know it.  If not, there’s something so wrong with the world.

To C.B.  Thanks for being the big brother I never had.  Don’t worry — I’m still going to be around to call you a jagoff.

To my family.  I can never thank you for all the love, support, and help you’ve provided for me over the last 22 1/2 years.  I couldn’t ask for a better family.  I’m so lucky to have you.

And, finally, to J.D.  You’ve been so, so wonderful to me and I’m so thankful that you’re mine.  Thank you for putting up with my paranoia over school and my sometimes slightly skewed priorities.  As soon as this week’s over, I can finally unwind and you can see the me that isn’t wound up like a guitar string again.  Thank you for always being there for me and supporting me.  Thank you for loving me no matter what.  This next week can’t go fast enough.

**

Now, a word of advice for the underclassmen who may or may not be reading this:

Hold on to every memory you can and savor each moment.  This sounds so cliche, but time really does fly the closer you get to graduation.  It’ll be here before you know it.  It’s tempting to wish it away, but enjoy being with your friends and adopted families while you can.  It goes by in a blink of an eye.

Thank you to everyone who’s been there for me over the last four years.  I’m so, so grateful for everything you’ve done. I’ll never forget the relationships with people that I’ve forged at SHU.  I promise to “Hazard Yet Forward.”

And, if you need any other adulthood advice, go ask Hank Green.

I have no idea what to write for my research paper.

What I do know is that my current project involves the pros and cons of social media: cyber bullying, business success, ect.

What I don’t know is how to turn this into a 15-page paper.

…

Um…help?

Anyone?

Hello?

(In your case, Gaston, I’m surprised you can even hold the book right-side-up.)

I digress.  Of course there’s always the pictures on the dust jacket.  And, ok, the US versions of the Harry Potter books all had small illustrations on the top of chapters.  However, they weren’t there the whole way, showing you every scene and putting a finite image in your head.  When I read fiction, I do it as a way to imagine and dream.  I don’t like having those two things dictated to me.  Non-fiction, obviously, is different because you have a set location or time period or cast of characters.

But my fiction?

I like being able to use my imagination.

Now, Gaston, I know this might shock you.  You’re getting ready to argue me at this very second.  But, let’s take a look at Hayles.  She mentions Patchwork Girl.  The idea of Frankenstein’s monster mating with anything is horrifying and, when Frankenstein realized this, he ripped her body to shreds.

Enter Mary Shelley, the sneaky author.  She put the female monster back together again.

The main components of the hypertextual corpus are “body of text,” containing the female monster’s narration and theoretical speculations on hyertextual and human bodies; “graveyard,” where the stories of the creatures whose parts were used to make the female monster are told; “story,” in which are inscribed excerpts from the relevant passages in Frankenstein along with the monster’s later adventures; “journal,” the putative journal of Mary Shelley where she records her interactions with the female monster; and “crazy quilt,” a section containing excerpts from Frank Baum’s Patchwork Girl of Oz, as well as reinscriptions from other parts of the text (Hayles 147-148).

Well.

It’s a really interesting idea.  I’m not saying it’s not.  The idea of using the separate sections symbolically for the bits of the monster as well as the actual Patchwork Girl in different and intrigues me.  I just don’t know how much I would enjoy being told what to see after so many years of avoiding it.

Hmm?  “But there are no pictures” you still say?  Oh, Gaston.

There’s just something about the reading experience to me that’s lost when I’m told what I have to see.  It’s one reason I refuse to see the movie of a book I’m interested in or already like without reading the book.  I want to make sure that I’m able to keep my own images.

Even after seeing The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games, I’m still able to keep my vision separate from that of the films.  I’m just not sure how much I’d be able to enjoy a book that shoves those images down my throat.

What’s that?

Oh, Gaston, shhh.  I’m making a point.

But, even more than pictures, I wonder what this all says about writing and that culture anymore.  An argument (besides my own) against Patchwork Girl was the question of originality.

Among Patchwork Girl‘s many subversions is its attack on the “originality” of the work.  ”In collage, writing is stripped of the pretense of originality,” Jackson writes.  ”One can be surprised by what one has to say in the forced intercourse between texts or the recombinant potential in one text, by other works that mutter inside the proper names” (Stitch Bitch,” 537).  The muttering becomes discernible in Shelley Jackson’s playful linking of her name with Mary Shelley’s.  The title screen of Jackson’s work performs this distributed authorship, for it says Patchwork Girl is “by Mary/Shelley & herself,” a designation that names Mary Shelley, Shelley Jackson, and the monster all as authors (Hayles 157).

This idea of remixing an older text is not new.  In fact, it’s been going on for ages.  While discussing remixes in another class, we talked about several texts that draw on others.  Mary Reilly is a retelling of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  Mary Reilly, a servant, falls in love with Jekyll.  Wide Sargasso Sea is a “prequel” to Jane Eyre that tells the story of Antoinette Cosway (Bertha Mason in JE).  Jane Slayre, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and others of the like all draw on old texts and reinvent them.

Shush, Gaston.  I’m almost done.

But then, we have to look at originality versus creativity, right?  How many ideas are really original anymore?  However, how many creative ways can you turn around an old idea?

Does it come down to perspective?

Fine, Gaston.  I’ll stop.  I don’t expect you to understand.  After all, you’re positively primeval.

Now, don’t read anymore into that than you need to.  I just think it’s an interesting concept.  After all, these people inhabiting Mars are inhabiting Barbie and Ken rip-offs and can hear each other’s thoughts.  Basically, the drugs are coding the humans.  The humans, while they would like believe they are in control, really aren’t.

The narrative viewpoint nevertheless marks a clear boundary between the illusory world of Perky Pat and the reality of the colonists’ everyday lives.  While the colonists are experiencing themselves as the glamorous Pat and Walt, the narrator describes them as an objective eye would see them, sprawled in the hovel with drool dripping from their mouths from the chewed up Can-D.  When the drug wears off, the colonists, too, see the scene the narrator describes and are snapped back into the reality they never in fact escaped.

As I read this, I was reminded of a slideshow I saw recently on the internet.  In the 1950s, the government was doing a study on drugs.  They gave an artist a dose of LSD and left him with an activity box with crayons and pencils.  He was then left alone with the medic who gave him the does.

Why did that remind me of the reading?  Because the artist was also coded.  The slideshow includes the things he said while under the influence, and there is no way you can tell me the drugs didn’t control what he experienced or thought.  I guess until Hayles, though, I never thought of it that way.

Can I just start by saying how thrilled I am about both of those things?

Ahhh…

Now that I have that out of my system, I’d like to take a moment to discuss my depth, interaction, timeliness and coverage.  Once again, I do in fact think that my humor adds to my posts.  I don’t like to be overly heady — I want my writing to be accessible and readable to everyone.  (I’m looking at you, Hayles.)

Depth:
I did a few noteworthy things this time around.  I proposed my term project.  I looked at the idea of human computers and history repeating itself.  I also compared Borges to my favorite Goosebumps books.  I’ve tried to make my blogs more thought out this time around.

Interaction:
Jessie commented on my post about Grobanites and Clay Shirkey.  I had a couple conversations with others, as well.  I told Beth Anne what I thought of her info graphic.  However, I feel like eventually, we all somewhat forget about comments.  (Well…ok, I hope I’m not the only one.  I do try, though.)

Timeliness:
I did in fact get my blogs in on time.  I REMEMBERED!  Yes, they sometimes killed me to get the reading done, but I forced myself to soldier on and get everything done.  That May 12th milestone helps a bit, too.

Coverage:
I did some other blogs as well.  I wrote about society and coding.  I talked about looking for the mouse and the Invisible College.  Most importantly, I wrote about what I was thinking and made my blog into a sort of online Pensieve.

Look ma! I do go to Hogwarts!

I do like to think, however, that I’m halfway literate as far as terminology goes.

Thank you, Hayles, for bursting my bubble and making me feel like an underdeveloped piece of pond scum.

I just wish there was more to go off of.  I wish I didn’t need a degree from MIT to understand what she’s saying.  I guess overall, I just need to…experience?  Seeing the game of life actually made things make a little more sense.

Will that work for everything? No.  We all know that.  However, having some sort of reference that we can understand without a doctorate in this subject would make things so much easier.

I mostly just feel like a bear of very little brain.

While talking about new media, Hayles writes, “On the other hand, media clearly determine and help constitute humans’ embodied responses, which include not only the historically specific conditioned reactions of a given epoch but also the evolutionary evolved cognitive and perceptual capabilities that Hansen evokes” (35-36).

Basically, if media is messing with our evolution, I’m frightened for the future.  Does this mean that, by nature, humans are going to become less compassionate and more hostile towards one another because they are essentially trained social skills through a machine?  I feel  like this is a legitimate concern.  I know it frightens me.  How does this impact my term project about cyberbullying and the pros and cons of social media?  More importantly, how does this effect society?

As far as society goes, we all have language.  We have the ability to speak and communicate with one another (even if we’re abusing the power.)  At least when computers use their language, they’re not telling each other to jump off a bridge or that all the other computers would be better off if this one computer just blew its hard drive. They are, however, still communicating.  When humans learn this language (although I still don’t believe that it should count as a language requirement), they are able to join the computers’ conversation as well.  ”…it allows programmers to conceptualize the solution in the same terms used to describe the problem” (Hayles 57).

Interesting.  Very interesting.