Portland, OR Photographer - Dave Scott Photographic » Sports Photography

Baseball Player – Alex Nevue

Dave — Sun, 15 May 2011 04:23:40 +0000

When we arrived at the field the skies were hazy overcast. Not good at all for making portraits that include the sky. However, this is springtime in the pacific northwest and in the evening when the temperature drops, the clouds come out to play. Within 30 minutes the haze changed to full blown clouds. For Alex, I wanted to capture the unique way he holds the ball before going into his windup.

For this shoot I used only speedlights. 2 Nikon SB800s and one LumoPro LP 1600 (which I was trying out for the first time). Because of how dark it was getting, I was able to use the speedlights at 1/2 and 1/4 power. Camera/lens: Nikon D7000 and Nikon 12-24/f4.0. Also Pocket Wizard Plus II units and Quantum Battery packs.

Sports photography, sports portraits and sportraits in Vancouver, WA and Portland, OR.

My First Published Photograph

Dave — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 05:31:24 +0000

A few weeks ago I was invited to speak to the student staff of Clark College’s newspaper The Independent. I prepared a presentation on my iPad using the Keynote app and displayed the presentation on their projector. As part of the presentation I thought it would be cool to show them my first published photo. It was published in a newspaper and I made a whopping $15 (over 25 years ago!). The photo below shows the yellowing newspaper clipping.

Sports photography in Portland OR, Vancouver WA and Seattle WA.

Cagers Basketball Academy Brochure

Dave — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 22:42:30 +0000

I got a call from a basketball coach that I’ve known for a few years. I met him when he coached at a local high school. He is now running the successful Cagers Basketball Academy in Vancouver, WA. Greg needed photos produced for his brochure and website. One of the programs he offers utilizes Basketball Strength Shoes. The athletes go through a number of drills while wearing the Strength Shoes. Below is one of the images we created. To visit the Cagers Basketball Academy click here!

Sports photography in Portland OR and Vancouver WA.

Outdoor Track Shoot With Kevin

Dave — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:00:07 +0000

This was an awesome shoot. It was a hot day, just before sundown. Jordan and I set up our studio lights on the track. We used a battery system which is easily capable of powering four of our strobes. When Kevin arrived, all he needed to do was what he does so well, run. He stretched, warmed up, and made two test passes so that I could adjust my position as Jordan made final adjustments to the strobes. Kevin made around 15 full speed passes. We shot one frame per pass. We nailed the shot!

March 2010 Mailer

Dave — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:59:59 +0000

Above is our March 2010 mailer. It features a Sports Portrait (or Sportrait) of Austin Dodge. Austin was Skyview high school’s starting quarterback for the 2009 season. He will be playing at Central Washington University next year. I will be shooting another portrait of Austin along with the Skyview Football head coach Steve Kizer next week.

Strobing Indoor Sports

Dave — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:45:41 +0000

Anyone that has tried to shoot sports at indoor venues knows how hard it is to make good images. The lighting is normally very limited. To overcome the lack of light, photographers use camera bodies with high ISO capabilities and fast lenses. An alternative would be to use a flash. The problem with on-camera flash is that images look very flat and 2 dimensional.

This week I decided to strobe some wrestling and basketball. In the old days, we set up 4 studio strobes at indoor venues. The set-up was a bit time consuming. Jordan and I were short on time so we used two lights (Nikon SB800). Set-up was very quick and we were able to use an ISO of 800 rather than 3200.

Here are 2 example images.

More Skyview Sports Portraits

Dave — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:49:26 +0000

This post contains more sports portraits (or sportraits as many now call them) from a shoot mentioned in this previous post. While so many think that this is a new style of lighting and several photographers are willing to claim it as their discovery, I was actually using this three point lighting back in the mid ’80s. Who invented it? I don’t know but my inspiration came from the illustrations in the comic books that I read as a kid.

Nicole – Fitness Model/Figure Competitor

Dave — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 05:10:57 +0000

In the world of women’s bodybuilding there are several different flavors. There are bodybuilders who work hard to add lots of size and bulk and sculpt their bodies to perfection. There are fitness competitors who compete in incredible acrobatic dance routines. And there are figure competitors who sculpt their bodies with weight training but don’t attempt to bulk up like bodybuilders do.

I had the awesome opportunity to photograph Nicole. Nicole is both a fitness model and a figure competitor. She told me that she is new to figure competitions and would like to get her pro card.

The kinds of images that you are likely to see Nicole in would be running ads or posing as a boxer, etc. We decided to shoot something a little different.

Skyview Profiles (01)

Dave — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 10:39:29 +0000

This football season we were fortunate to be able to work with a dozen Skyview High School athletes creating profile portraits (sportraits) for my Storm website. We worked over a two day period shooting at Kiggins Bowl, Skyview’s home stadium. Jordan, my photo assistant (and son), really got a workout as we took 400 lbs of studio equipment on location and had to move it all over the stadium. Congratulations to the Skyview football team for making it all the way to the WIAA 4A Semi-Finals!

Below is the first set of portraits. I’ll present more in a future post.

My Personal Project – Skyview Sports

Dave — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 09:31:02 +0000

Every photographer needs a personal project and I am no different. During the first ten years of my photographic career more than 50% of my assignments were sports action coverage. My clients included daily newspapers on both coasts, national sports magazines, major universities, and the governing bodies of many pro and amateur leagues. I moved on to other types of assignments and my days of sports action seemed well behind me… Then, in 2007, my wife suggested that I shoot some of the games of my son’s high school football team. Skyview High School sports became my personal project. It’s refreshing to be able to shoot without any commercial expectations attached and to give a little bit back to our local community. Below are a few images I’ve shot over the years. If you would like to see more, check out www.storm.davescottphoto.com.