Lacrosse Huddle

LAX1
Originally uploaded by DriftingPhotographer

The lacrosse huddle shot is probably one of my favorite sports photographs that I've ever taken.

I took this in my sophomore year, less than a year after taking up photography. It was the first lacrosse game I had ever photographed, and also the first game on our home fields. I was still shooting with the D50 at the time.

At the time I wasn't one for "emotion shots," preferring to stick to shooting the basic action shots. But I had heard that the coach for our lacrosse team was particularly intense, so I decided to try something. Besides, this was a historic game, I should have a memorable shot.

I removed my craptastic 70-300mm f/3.5-5.6G AF lens from my D50 and mounted the basic 18-55mm kit lens. Hopping into aperture priority as I always shot.

I tried squeezing in through the sides, but I'm a fairly short person and these guys were quite big, particularly with all their gear on. There was no way that I was going to get a shot from the side. So I jumped.

I jumped, pointed my camera down, and prayed. Because it was a D50, it would only be able to fire off one shot. I had to get the timing right. There was only one chance to grab this, the huddle was breaking as the game got ready to start.

I didn't get to see my results until 10 minutes later, at the first timeout. I was too busy grabbing the action. But while shamelessly chimping on the sidelines, I was quite pleased with the results.

This photo won 5th place for newspaper sports photography at the Fall 2006 JEA/NSPA Highschool Journalism convention in Nashville, TN. It ran full page in the next year's yearbook, half page in our first news magazine, and has generated over $50 in print sales. Not bad for a first year....

Click the photo to see it big.