Photo by Mike Racine
Photo by David Pang
Which photo from above do you like better? Bet you chose David Pang's over mine. Why? Well, clearly it's the better image. David's shots are consistently more compelling than mine. Why is that?
A ton of factors go into the creation of any good sport photo. However, I'd suggest the two most important rules for capturing the excitement and action on the field are:
CAPTURE FACES. Photos of the backsides of soccer players aren't particularly compelling. Capture the front side players in action. Look for key moments. Practice good timing on your shutter release.
FILL THE FRAME UP. I can't tell you how many thousands of soccer images I've made and viewed that don't fill the frame with action. You know what I'm talking about. There is a ton of grass or turf, and little indiscernable blobs of soccer players. Yep. Been there. Done that. It can be hard to fill the frame in a fast action game like soccer, but until you force yourself to do it, your shots, like mine, are going to have room for improvement.
Photo by David Pang
Filling the frame and capturing the front of the action will head you in the direction of photos like David's. There are literally dozens of technical things like focal length, shutter speed, aperture settings, and focus strategies that we could talk about, but those are the two most important that I see.
Here's a fairly in-depth article by Rob Miracle entitled "Sports Photography" that does a good job of balancing the technical vs compositional elements of capturing good sports images. Additionally, it provides sport-specific suggestions for photographers, including soccer.
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