New Blog!

I have decided to start a new blog! Please take a look at http://dtarverphoto.blogspot.com/

All of my new blog post will be posted there, so please take a look and subcribe!

The first one is always the toughest...

It is no secret that if you are a professional photographer, especially a professional sports photographer, your gear over time is going to take a fair amount of... abuse. You know this. it is inevitable. Running down a sideline or trekking across a golf course with 2 or 3 camera-lens combos tends to lead to a fair amount of gear bumping around. Things get dropped, rained on, hit by balls or even pucks. The high end cameras are designed to take this abuse and still function perfectly even if they accumulate a few battle scars along the way.

Now I know that some wire services, Like AP (Associated Press) buy the equipment that their photographers use and assign gear to them, but most freelancers like myself buy all of our own gear. Over the years I have seen other photographer take pretty good care of their gear, and some treat it like a carpenter would a hammer or a saw. Its a tool. period. And they will use their tools in whatever way they feel they need to in order to get the job done. Me on the other hand... I am not ashamed to admit that I baby the hell out of my gear! I buy whatever protection they have available (not much), and try to be as careful as possible with it at all times. But at the end of the day, I do have a job to do.

So last night, I covered the San Jose Sharks vs. the Phoenix Coyotes. Of all the sports, I find that hockey is usually fairly easy on the gear. To be sure, when you are lucky enough to get an ice level hole to shot from, you do need to be careful of pucks! I lost a UV filter to a puck a couple of years back so I know it can happen, but other than that, hockey is pretty tame. so imagine my surprise and heartbreak when after the game I was uploading some pictures and one of the other photographers points to my camera and says, "You must have cried when that happened." I am thinking to myself, when WHAT happened! I take a look and sure enough...

Instantly my mind flashes back to the end of the second period when I was climbing out of the TV well and banged against a wall. I didn't even look down because I was sure my lens took the hit and 1. its a brick 2. it has so many dings, one more wont matter. But I guess it wasn't the lens that took the hit.

So now Wheezy has her first battle scar. It made me think back to my (major) camera purchases, and when those bodies took their first battle damage. When I dropped my 1D MarkII outside of Spartan stadium while opening my camera bag for the useless security search, I felt literally like someone kicked me in the balls. When my uncapped 300mm lens swung around and scratched my 1D Mark III I felt like I had been slapped hard in the face. Last night when I was alerted to the damage to Wheezy, I felt like I imagine a marine liuetenant would feel at the start of a major battle upon hearing of his first casualty. Sad for sure, but knowing that there will be more casualties before the battle is won. And the battle will be long...

The first one is always the toughest one to take, and even though I still baby my gear as much as I can, I guess I have finally learned that no matter how many battle scars they take on the outside, like a good friend, its what's on the inside that really matters. I still love you Wheezy! lol.

Pappa's got a brand new bag!

I am writing this post today to help out those who are looking for a new roller bag for their camera gear.
Well, its no secret among sports shooters that if you want the best roller bag available, you have to go with ThinkTank! When I took a look at which bag I wanted though, I quickly narrowed my choices down to two. The Airport Security, and the Airport International. From the pictures they looked the same, and after speaking with a thinkTank rep who assured me that my 400 lens would fit in either bag, I decided to go with the International. I have some vague plans to travel in europe in the next few years, so I thought I would cover myself and get the International.
BIG MISTAKE! lol. I love the bag, don't get me wrong, but I didn't realize the International is quite a bit smaller than the Security. And considering I will take 100 domestic trips to every International one, I really wound up screwing myself.
I played and played with the configuration and finally this is what I came up with.

My 400 does fit in the bag, but in order to get all my other gear to fit, I have to leave the hood out. So now I have to carry the hood, and that is a big pain in the butt. When shooting football, I normally carry 3 bodies, my 400 2.8, 70-200 2.8, and either my 24-70 2.8 or 24-105 f/4. Also my 1.4 extender. There is also some room for a flash if I chose. My buddy who has the Security gets his 400 into the bag WITH the hood, plus all the same lenses AND a flash. Oh well, now I know, and you do too!

To be clear, the bag is excellent! VERY well constructed, easy to customize, and rolls like a dream. The best roller on the market. But if you are not doing a lot of international travel, I would go with the Airport Security for sure!

Just Shoot Baby!

Well, no disrespect to the late Al Davis, but he has a point. "Just win baby" may be his legacy, but the message is one we call all benefit from. As it just so happens, the last Raiders game that I covered, I was cruising the sidelines pregame complaining to myself how much I HATE shooting pregame. I was just telling myself I should go sit down until the game started when I saw Cleveland Browns runningback Payton Hillis stretching in front of me. I will freely admit I didn't know much about him, but I did remember he was on the cover of the Madden video game this year. He wasn't really doing anything, and I figured I would get some killer action shots of him during the game, so I was about to walk on by. Then I told myself to "Just Shoot Baby!", so I quickly raised my camera and had just enough time to fire off two frames.

It turns out Hillis was recovering from an injury, and after about one series re-injured himself and was out of the game. So much for my killer action shots. Later as I was going through the pictures, cursing his injury, I was about to delete the two shots of him I did take as they were pretty lame shots by my eye, but remembering my older post about uploading everything, I went ahead and uploaded the shots.

Well, It seems Hillis hasn't played since that game. And one of the "lame" shots I took of him seems to keep popping up all over the place. It has been used many times on SI.com and a couple of other sites. Mostly on a fantasy football injury report, but hey, it still pays. So in addition to telling myself to upload EVERYTHING, I now remind myself that pre,during, and post game, to just shoot baby!

Payton Hillis in his last game vs. Oakland prior to re-injuring himself

SF 49ers vs. NY Giants

So This weekend I covered Stanford-Oregon (post to come) on Saturday night, then followed that up with 49ers-Giants on Sunday. I felt like I did a good job last week with the Raiders game, and was really looking forward to this weekend. Long story short, a difficult Stanford game left me tired and out of sorts for Sundays game and I really feel like I blew it.

I think this shot pretty much sums up my weekend, Close, but just milliseconds away from a decent shot! Mario Manningham hauls in a touchdown pass.Meanwhile I get a great shot of the ball...



The game itself turned into a good one with an exciting finish. The Giants converted 2 fourth downs and came literally this close to tying the game!



Alex Smith continues to impress and played a largely mistake free game. 

Runningback Frank Gore sustained an injury and left the game pretty early. 

Gores counterpart Brandon Jacobs is quite a physical specimen, but was largely held in check by the 49er defense. 

Eli Manning looked pretty good, but a costly interception that led to a 49er touchdown proved to be the difference in the game. 

All in all, it was a good game, and I hope to rebound my next assignment and get some shots I really feel good about.

So I managed to cover the Raiders-Broncos game without getting sick. The rain never materialized and it turned out to be a pretty nice day to shoot. The story going into the game was the quarterbacks. Carson Palmer vs. Tim tebow. I know Tebow gets a lot of crap, but I like the kid. Palmer looked like the same average QB that he was in Cincy. I am not sure that the Raiders didn't over pay for him, we will see. I was quite happy with some of the pictures I got, but I seemed to be the only one!

Receiver Eric Decker makes a diving touchdown catch.

Lamarr Houston celebrates a sac.

Jacoby ford gets the ball knocked loose after a big catch.

Tim Tebow during warmups.

Carson Palmer in action.

Sharks vs. Penguins

I have decided to start sharing my recent event photos on my blog, then post a link from Facebook. I want to get better SEO for my name and my website, and I am told this is one way to do it! So here goes my latest event, the San Jose Sharks took on the Pittsburgh Penguins at HP.

Before the game, the Sharks honored "Jumbo" Joe Thornton for playing in 1,000 games and scoring 1,000 points. His Mom, Dad, Brother, Wife, and Daughter were in attendance.

The Sharks were in need of a home win, and things started out poorly for the Sharks! Neimi gave up two goals in just over two minutes! But Greiss came in and saved the day.

 Clowe was sporting a black eye after this one, but it seemed to fire him up!

 The Penguins Evgeni Malkin seemed unstoppable early, but Douglas Murray found a way to slow him down.





 The real story of this game though was Greiss. He was great in goal tonight.

Sports Photography, Photojournalism and Perfectionism.

I started my journey to being a photographer about 7 years ago. I didn't study photojournalism in college or even take a photography class. I bought a digital SLR camera to take better pictures of my young daughters and a love affair was born almost overnight. Soon after my passion for sports photography took over and has held me captive every since. I "learned" my craft mostly online, with the help of a number of great online photography forums. I learned the importance of clean backgrounds, tight cropping, sharp subjects, and most of all, peak action! Catching a play at the peak of the action became my mission. My obsession. And while on this path, I also became a bit of a perfectionist. If my photos didn't meet these all important criteria, well, it just didn't make the cut.

A few years ago, I started shooting for a wire service. One of the smaller ones, but that didn't matter, I was in. I had made it. Validation. I was finally and truly a sports photographer. And as a sports photographer, I really didn't consider myself a photojournalist. I mean, I wasn't taking pictures of burning buildings, protest, riots, or mayors. My only concern was backgrounds, shallow depth of field, sharp subjects, and above all, peak action.

Over the years I slowly began to learn that these things were not the holy grail of sports photography I had learned on these forums. I sell more non action photos now than anything else, and when I first started out I didn't even take any of those shots. My learning continues to this day and my latest lesson is one that may shake me to my core.

I realize now that any time I pick up my camera and cover an event, be it a sporting event, or concert, or yes, a burning building, I AM a photojournalist. Something happened to me this week that made me realize that I need to start thinking differently.

I was covering a preseason NFL game between the SF 49ers and the Oakland Raiders. If any of you have ever covered preseason football, you know how boring it can be. Many of the starting players will play just a series or two, and most of the game is played with players who will be cut and out of the NFL in just a few short weeks, making all of the pictures you are taking worthless. But as I diligently snapped away trying to get what little action there was, or some worthwhile player stock pictures, I noticed that there seemed to be a larger number of alcohol induced fighting going on in the stands. As a sports photographer, I rarely even looked into the stands because the peak action was to be found on the field. But in one instance, the fight was pretty close to me, and since the game was pretty boring, I turned around and snapped a few pictures. I then went back to the task at hand and finished the game.

In my editing workflow, I always go through every picture that I took at a game, and flag the ones that I want to edit and upload to the wire. I came across the fight pictures, chuckled to myself at how silly grown men could be, then kept going. The thought of editing and publishing these pictures never crossed my mind. The next day when I picked up the newspaper, I saw that a picture of this very fight was on the front page. Not the front of the sports section, but the front page. Over the next couple of days, I noticed that the pictures of that fight were everywhere! At that moment, the sick feeling of regret began to creep over me. Why hadn't I uploaded my pictures of the fight to my wire service? And it hit me. Perfectionism, and photojournalism...

When I looked at my fight pictures, I decided not to upload them because of:

1. Photojournalism - I am covering this game to get action shots of players and coaches, not drunks in the stands. I am a sports photographer, not a photojournalist. I felt that shots of a brawl in the stands had no value and that no one was interested in them.

2. Perfectionism - I barely registered it at the time, but when taking my pictures of the brawl, someone had walked into my frame and the shadow of their head could be seen in the corner of my shots. On a barely conscious level, I deemed the shot ruined. No one wants this kind of stuff to begin with, and certainly not with some guys head in my shot. I only realized this because the shot on page 1 of the paper had a nearly identical issue in the opposite corner, and yet there it was on the front page of the paper.

After seeing the pictures of the brawl almost everywhere, I came to my senses up and uploaded the shots to the wire. More importantly though, I realized that I am indeed a photojournalist every time I cover an event, sports or otherwise. I now know that my personal feelings and perfectionist hang ups have no place in deciding what is newsworthy. So now all shots go to the wire and the publications can decide what is fit to print.

Want to spice up your photos, add a pinch of fog...

I woke up the other morning to a foggy day in San Jose. I grabbed my camera and went a took a few shots. It still amazes me how just a little bit of fog can take what would be a fairly boring shot and give it some mystery and drama.

My new website is up!

It's finally here! After a technical problem brought down my old website, I used it as an opportunity to change a few things. I am pleased to announce that I am officially back on the air, with a new website. Check it out and let me know what you think!


http://www.dtarverphotography.com/

"Shooting" a game!

So I got an unexpected call yesterday from my friend Dr. Robert Malonso asking me if I wanted to go to the Giants game. It was an outing for his office staff, and he had an extra ticket. After a brief check of my calendar, I said I was in. Then it hit me. I had not been to a Giants game "as a fan", not shooting) in almost 2 years. This should be fun! But at the appointed hour, I found I couldn't just leave my camera at home, and decided to "shoot the game" as a fan. Now THIS should be fun! So I grabbed my trusty 1D MarkII and waited for Rob to pick me up.



After a printing SNAFU, Dr. Rob arrived almost 45 mins later than intended. Here he is pulling into my driveway.

Due to being late, the original plan to ride the train was now out the window, so we picked up Rolando and Rodger at the train station and hit the freeway.

I think Rob was a little frazzled, but we made pretty good time and he seemed to calm down.

At least the accident wasn't on our side of the freeway!

No train means we had to park, but we found a cheap lot not too far from the yard, so we parked and hiked in.

Normally when I shoot a game, I don't walk around the ballpark much. As we arrived and headed towards will call, we passed a few of the beautiful statues and features of the ballpark.

Here is Rob and Rodger at the will call window. Due to his tickets not printing at home, we had to go to will call and pick them up. Only, not this will call! Of course we need to go to the one clear on the other side of the stadium!

Here is Rob waiting at Will call booth #2. This time we get the tickets and head on in! Only about 5 mins late.

Here is something I have never done in all my time at AT&T park! Hit the concession stand. I can't believe I of all people have never done this, but I never had at AT&T.

And I can officially say I have been missing out! I may have to stop shooting a little early next game and make my way up and grab another one of these excellent Kielbasa's.

What the... I guess it pays to be on time.

Finally, in our seats! VB317. A little high, but we had a GREAT view of the action, and it really wan't very cold.

I normally catch the game from down there. There is my friend and fellow photog Tony Medina shooting away.

Dr. Rob enjoying his Kielbasa.


The Panda fans were out in force. I can see the advantage of those hats on a cold day, but even though I like Pablo, I think they are more than a little stupid. Shhh....

All in all, I had a great time. It really reminded me how much I enjoy just watching baseball, and I want to thank Dr. Rob for the invite. It was a blast.

Signature Series Pricing!

It dawned on me after several request that I never published the pricing on the signature series! If you recall, I am releasing 3 prints per quarter for 2010, the first three of which are on sale now. I am only releasing 100 of each print, then they will never be sold again. Each is signed and numbered by the artist (me!). The price is $175 for a signed, numbered 11x17 print in a 16x20 frame. REMEMBER, the first 10 of each print I am offering $50 off, so act fast!

I will update each day with some information behind the pictures. A behind the scenes look at how and why they were captured. Stay tuned!

Announcing the 2010 Signature Series Fine Art Photography Collection

It's finally here! D. Tarver Photography is announcing the 2010 Signature Series Fine Art Photography Collection. Each Quarter, I will release 3 photos following the 2010 theme, "The Elements". For Q1, the theme is "Fire and Water". I will sell only 100 of each print. Each framed print comes signed, and numbered.

Remember, once the 100 are gone, these will never be offered for sale again. The First 10 sold of each framed print will receive $50 off. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.

At Long last, I Am Project #4! Dr. Derenzi

Sorry for the long Delay! #4 is finally up! Remember, if you want to be #5, please let me know!

I Am Project #3: Dr. Robert Malonso - General Dentist

I Am Project #2: Tony King - Teacher

The "I Am" Project is officially kicked off!

The first slide show of the "I Am" project is up for all to view. A big thank you to my subject this week, Kathleen DeManti, pastry chef extraordinaire! Look for another show next week.

Thank you, and enjoy!

I'm Back!

Ok, so I never really went anywhere, but I have been WAY to lazy on updating my blog. But I am set to kick off my "I Am" project this week, so I should have updates at least weekly, hopefully a little more often.

If you work in a cool or unique profession, or are interestd in getting a portrait taken, shoot me an email. Look for an update in a day or two, and take care until then.

Published! (again)

It still remains a thrill for me to see my work published. (OK, and I can use the money!) Picked up a 1 pager in the Sporting News NFL 09 preview magazine. A shot I took at a Raiders game last year of stand out cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha. (see below).

I also got a smaller shot of Matt Holliday of the A's published. Much smaller, and its in the fold, but hey, its a few bucks!

I hope I can keep it going!

Back to editing!

After a fun filled weekend of shooting, its back to the computer to finish my editing work! I was out in Los Gatos on Saturday shooting youth Soccer, and in Oakland on Sunday shooting the A's (who are very hot right now winning their 6th in a row). Having shot the A's quite a few times this season, I tried to spend some shooting things a little differently. I didn't want to capture the same old images I have shot 100's of times. I really wanted to capture moments that the fan rarely gets to see. I wanted to capture the game up close, and personal.

Jason Giambi in between pitches

Rookie Pitcher Vin Mazzaro prepares to make his second start, and gets advice from catcher Kurt Suzuki.

Orioles third baseman Melvin Mora tries to haul in a pop fly

Well, my time in the sun is over for now. Back to the computer. Until next time.