A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words, Part 6 of 6 (Finally!!)

The last part of the day's action saw the players doing smaller passing plays—which were in an areas of about two meters square on the ice—which made them extremely hard to shoot. So rather than showing off a bunch of blurry Jets zipping around like my cat after she's had too much cake (yes my cat gets sugar high, she's weird...), I figured getting the shots of them zooming around doing laps was a little bit easier for me to handle. It could even be seen as a teachable moment for anyone else who may be interested in doing action photography, no matter the sport, so strap in, because a lot of camera nerdy-talk is coming up!

Both Poolman and (possibly? Cannot see the number) Myers are within the same focal depth, which makes them a bit more in focus than the coach who is closer to the camera. I had the focus on that area of the ice to catch as many shots of people in that area as I could... but of course changing the focusing point had to happen... Gotta keep things interesting!!

Not quite in focus, but pretty close to it!!

The nice thing about aiming the camera at a moving goaltender? They generally move a slight bit slower than everyone else due to the heavier equipment they have strapped to their arms and legs, making it a bit easier to get a quick manual focus on them! That being said, both Bucky and Brossoit were pretty speedy out there, and would run circles around any average person who doesn't play hockey at a high level! Hats off to you guys!

In this case, when Chiarot and Hellebuyck came back around the second time, I made the depth of field deeper. Which means a higher number, but it also meant I had to slow down the shutter speed a slight bit. So where the previous shot was done on a 1/500th of a second/16 f-stop, this one was done at a 1/250th of a second with a 32 f-stop.

I went back to the faster shutter speed to make sure that I would be getting more sharpness on whomever I focused on in this shot, which is why Andrew Copp (in front) is in fairly decent focus, while Brandon Tanev and (I am guessing on the second guy?) Adam Lowry are out of focus. And yes, once I get used to seeing how someone moves about, whether on the ice or not, I can generally tell who someone is, when things are out of focus for me (be it the camera having taken a blurry shot OR I have my glasses off!).

Literally taken less than a second after the previous shot, Adam Lowry is more in focus than Brandon Tanev. Had I done a deeper f-stop setting, both of them would have been in focus.

More zippy action, this time with Jacob Trouba (red jersey nearest the net) being the one in the best focus.

Deepened the f-stop a bit here as the net, assistant Coach Compon, and Andrew Copp are more in focus than everyone else. And yes the boards always appear to be in focus because they are standing still. Sad but true!

The depth of field setting worked well here as both Adam Lowry and Brandon Tanev fall into focus, while Patrik Laine is a bit out of focus ahead of them.

The depth of field almost worked here to catch both Kyle Connor and Matthieu Perreault. Almost.

Both Marko Dano and Nic Petan are close to being in focus here, the edge going to Petan. Even so, happy with how this shot turned out as it could have been a total blur!

Jack Roslovic happened to get into the perfect spot, and the timing of the manual focusing also made this shot quite good.

I am guessing this is Bryan Little whom I got in focus (in the navy jersey).

I changed the focus slightly and managed to catch captain Blake Wheeler as he wheels around the net during the laps.

Changed the focus again and this time I managed to get a decent focus on Mark Scheifele, with captain Wheeler just slightly out of focus.

Almost had everything set right with this shot, in that Little, Connor, and Perreault are all close to being within the focal area.

This one is also better in that Laurent Brossoit, Jack Roslovic, and (Possibly...??) Patrik Laine are close to being in the sweet zone.

This time, I managed to get Scheifele in perfect focus.

Of course, the coaches had them skate a bunch of times counter-clockwise as well. Though I can understand the logic and need behind this, this shot was about the best action one I got of anyone coming from that direction due largely in part to the amount of reflection off the glass. There was nothing that could be done to counteract that, this was about the nicest one I got from that angle.

Another from the alternate angle, the other decent shot I care to share from that angle. However, this time instead of getting frustrated with myself on not getting good captures of the men speeding past me, I decided instead to aim at those who were actually standing—or sitting—still. This one made for a nice shot, and I can just hear one of my former filmmaking profs being impressed by using other people to frame up a scene.

One last team meeting before most of the guys were sent off the ice. A few went to the Jets' Fanfest action, while others (I imagine) went home to conk out for a while, as it was a very hard four-hour practice at the camp that day.

Of course, some of these men just love the ice so much, they cannot leave. Here, Brandon Tanev eyes up his last shot on the ice for the day.

Tanev has taken his shot, which landed in the net perfectly, and eventually makes his way off the ice.

Some people I know are questioning why I gave this article the subtitle that I did about catching tadpoles. This is a reference to my childhood, when I would walk out onto Mum's fields with her, find one of the sloughs, and in our rubber boots, wade out into the outer edge of the small freshwater body and try and catch tadpoles in a jar to take back to the house and put into Mum's water lily garden.

Now, one would have to first wait for the tadpoles to quit going nuts and hyper about these four rather big unnatural things (our feet in the high rubber boots) invading their space. Naturally, they would be startled by this.

But eventually, they would get back into a predictable pattern of swimming, making it easier to catch them in the jam jars we'd brought out with us. For a photographer who is getting used to the movements of a certain group of hockey players, observing them and also understanding their motion on the ice helps a lot with being able to "catch" them in photos. Video is a lot easier to do as that is a moving picture, but stills are a lot harder to capture, kind of like those little tadpoles I caught as a 10 year old.

I am not trying to call any of the players an amphibian of any kind by making this comparison, that's just some of my farmgirl upbringing coming to the forefront in terms of looking at the motions happening.

(Of course, as soon as I typed that out, I imagined a couple of tiny, action-figure sized Jets in a jar with holes in its lid... yep, I am too tired right now, but that image dancing through my mind did seem a bit humorous, to put it nicely!)

It is my hope that this series of six photo stories has been something which people out there have enjoyed looking at, especially those of you who could not be at the Fan Fest day at the Bell MTS Iceplex, and that my random rambles here have also proven to be a bit on the interesting side.