After a Friday night consisting of several tornado warnings, the weather cleared up perfectly for me and Margo to cover the rest of softball’s series against South Carolina. I showed up to Mizzou Softball Stadium for Saturday’s shutout win and Margo was there on Sunday for the 4-0 loss. Take a look at the photos of the week!
We’re starting off a bit dramatically today… For some reason this day I ended up getting photos of something like five different slides – with varying success for the teams. Although
we’re not able to see Linny Ramsey’s face in this shot, I actually really love the composition with her sliding into second while South Carolina’s Karley Shelton prepares to make the play, and the ball still being midair really adds another visual element of interest to me. I’m also loving the way the late afternoon light is shining through the dust Ramsey kicked up.
I know it’s kind of a thing now for a lot of sports photographers to add lens flares, sparkles, or various other funky edits to their photos, but I swear this was just the sun reflecting off Claire Cahalan’s helmet. Besides, you guys should know by now that everything I do in taking and toning my photos is according to photojournalistic ethics. Beyond that, I also love the layering and line created by the South Carolina player in the foreground and the umpire in the background.
Here’s another one of the slides I got from this game! What I like about this photo aside from the slide itself is that we can see pitcher KG Favors still in frame and the ball has just been caught by Karley Shelton. Abby Hay is still sliding back into first base, but it’s obviously a bit too late at this point. I have another great photo from this series of Hay in a full scorpion-like position still sliding back into first, but decided I should probably spare her that being posted online (this was the better photo anyways).
There’s a lot of things I really like about this photo. South Carolina’s Kai Byars had just been called out at the plate, and we can see Missouri catcher Stefania Abruscato about to throw the ball back to the pitcher and continue the game, Byars is still getting up from her slide attempt and the umpire is still calling her out. All of these help make the photo more interesting and I find I don’t mind that it’s backlit by the sun as much as I might have normally been bothered. I do wish I didn’t cut off the umpire’s leg and that all three were in more of a peak action moment as opposed to just the umpire, who’s facing away from me, but this is life and that’s not always how things go. I’m still a big fan of this though, hence why I’ve included it here!
Despite the fact that this photo of Margo’s is from between innings, I find it just so interesting. It’s clean in terms of the background and I love Sophie Smith’s outstretched stance to make the catch. Kind of like my photo from earlier, I do wish her glove wasn’t being covered by her teammate’s on the right side of the frame, but it doesn’t bother me enough to leave it out here.
I got some photos from a rundown during Saturday’s game, but this one of Margo’s beats all of mine out by far. I’m obsessed with the parallel leg positions by Linny Ramsey and Karley Shelton and the shapes they create in the frame. I also just think it’s such a fun moment, especially with Ramsey looking back over her shoulder at Shelton as she gets tagged out.
We’ll wrap things up with a nice simple but great action moment! This play isn’t something you can necessarily anticipate, so you have to react in the moment. You may have seen this with some of our other baseball and softball coverage, but while it’s not that uncommon to get a photo of a moment like this, it is fairly uncommon to get a photo of the moment just before the catch is made with the ball still in the air. This is a great shot by Margo! I also really like that Madison Uptegrove is in the foreground so it’s not just an empty composition with only Kayley Lenger making the catch. It would still be a good photo in that case, but this just makes it less boring, for lack of a better term.
See you next week for more from me!
