Sports/Action

Minor League Baseball trumps the Big Leagues. Tickets are significantly cheaper, atmosphere is casual and parking is way easier. Plus the players are playing for heart, not purse. Although ballplayers on the farm teams may not have the talent or skills of the guys in The Show, the action—and therefore your chance for a great shot—is equal.

Here’s your guide to finding the teams near you, preparing for the event, and coming back with the most rewarding photos.

BMX rider Daniel Coriz comes in at speed from the right side, launches himself up 10 feet, touches both tires, pulls the handlebars to pop a wheelie off the wall, then turns the bike for a clean exit. He lands a foot in front of adventure sports photographer Michael Clark, who’s been hand-holding his camera, tracking and firing to capture every turn and twist of the trick.

Shooting sports and action can really put your gear and your timing to the test. But there’s more to a great action shot than simply capturing the moment and making sure it’s in focus. Shutterbug readers showed their fast action shooting skills this month with winning photos that captured a variety of sports, from bike racing to baseball and surfing to rodeo. For this assignment, we wanted to see sports and action images that had great composition, effective use of backgrounds and scenery, and powerful human emotion. Shutterbug’s sports shooters delivered.

Olympus announced its latest waterproof, crushproof, shockproof, freezeproof compact digital camera this morning: the 16-megapixel Stylus Tough TG-4.

I woke up startled—I was about to cross the border into North Korea. I was cramped; it felt like I was stuffed in economy class on a bad airline. It was so bad I could hear the rain pounding away outside. It was pitch black. Worse yet, I did not have my passport with me. What was going to happen to me? As I came to, I realized I was not dreaming anymore.

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This is an excerpt from the book “Sports Photography: How to Capture Action and Emotion” by Peter Skinner.

Virtually every day we see great sports action photographs in newspapers and magazines. As the term implies, the photographers who made these images have truly “captured the action.” Because we see them so often, it can be easy to...

"As they go through their routines, I see the shot. I want to see the moment so I'll know it's coming."

You'd think it would be Rule Number One: when the stock shot is a sports image, you get players, not models. Always shoot the folks who know how to play the game. But you'd be surprised how many times we've talked to sports...