Photographing the San Francisco Giants – Playoff Bound

After speaking at the Telluride Photo Festival, I continued on to the San Francisco to meet with a few clients. And when I asked Brad Mangin out for lunch, he one-upped me by inviting me to a SF Giants game — a critical game for a team that was deep in the hunt for the baseball playoffs.

Having never photographed a professional baseball game, I was really excited, but a bit under-equipped. Fortunately, a bunch of great rental houses have popped up around the country. Borrowlenses.com happens to be located in the Bay Area in San Carlos, so I put in a reservation for a Nikon 200-400mm f/4 lens for the day. It wasn’t quite the 800mm that Brad was lugging along to the game, but I figured it would do the trick.

The cool thing about shooting a pro game isn’t so much the access (although that’s obviously great), but the ability to talk to guys who photograph baseball at the highest level day in and day out. Given that Brad’s images are prominently featured in everything from Sports Illustrated to Ken Burn’s newest baseball documentary, The Tenth Inning, I knew I would be in good company. I was also surrounded by guys like Giants team photographer, Andy Kuno, and sports/rock photographer legend, Michael “Z” Zagaris, Jose Luis Villegas, Scott Watcher and more, so there was ample opportunity to soak it all up through osmosis.

Brad lent me a monopod that Peter Read Miller left at his house after 9/11 to avoid carrying it on a plane (a potential weapon), and off we went to AT&T Park. I was standing right behind Brad, so he was able to instruct me and show me what he was shooting as the game went along. I used to think that baseball was all about the “ball on bat” shot, but he pointed out the tendencies of different players, left-handed vs. right-handed batters and pitchers, and the way that the sun would be setting on the park — it all made intuitive sense, but of course, theory is very different from practice. Take this fine photo, for example:

Sure, the head is cut off, it’s out of focus, but otherwise, I nailed it!

There were about 6 other photographers in the third base photo well with me, and it became immediately obvious that I was hitting my shutter a few microseconds after every one else. Awkward! New guy! They were also seeing a lot of things I wasn’t seeing — pointing their lenses into the dugout, looking for the “jube” shots after strong plays, capturing details beyond play action. I definitely like a fish out of water. Even using the monopod felt foreign to me. Who’s the bearded guy? Why are people wearing pandas on their head? Why is everyone cheering when the catcher gets up to bat?

Amateur hour.

If nothing else, baseball is a forgiving sport because of the repetition. There is a theoretical minimum of 81 pitches thrown per game (and usually more like a couple hundred). Everyone bats multiple times. And you don’t have to run up and down the sidelines to follow the action. Nine innings into the game, with the sun starting to hang lower in the sky, things started to make a little more sense. I still missed a lot of good shots, but I made a few that I liked too. That Nikon lens is pretty awesome, although I admit that I usually kept it dialed into 400mm to eliminate one variable to worry about.

When it was all done, Brad dragged me into the Giants dugout for a little portrait. Boy, I was thirsty (and all smiles for a great day).

And even though the Giants stunk up the next few games, they did end up winning their division and will advance to the MLB Playoffs. So who cares if I normally root for the Yankees? This post season, I’m throwing a panda on my head and cheering for the Giants.