WHAT'S IT LIKE SHOOTING A PRO HOCKEY GAME?
It's a late November night and the Savannah Ghost Pirates are in town to take on the Florida Everblades. A light breeze blows through the Southwest Florida air as I walk to the media entry. After picking up my credential I headed into the rink where the Everblades were playing a warm up game of soccer. The team was laughing and building great camaraderie before hitting the ice for warm ups.
While the team plays soccer, I explore Hertz Arena to get familiar with it as I've only been there one other time for a concert. As it gets closer to game time, the gates open and the fans come in creating a buzz in the arena. I head down to the glass to get the camera settings right for the game. The toughest part about shooting hockey, is having a fast enough shutter while letting in enough light at the same time. I found cranking up my ISO helped a lot! I ran my ISO at about 6000 most of the night which was enough to not have a crazy amount of noise, and still lighten up the photos.
As puck drop approaches, the teams hit the ice for warm-ups. I took a couple photos during warm-ups to make sure my settings worked well with the players skating and then did another lap around the arena. I had to get my steps in for the day!
It's game time! The teams hit the ice, the anthem is sung, and the puck has dropped! I started off shooting behind the net that Florida was shooting at through the glass. I then hopped over to the camera hole in the corner of the rink. I hung out down at the end of the rink mostly shooting through the camera hole. In the third period I headed up into the stands for a little different perspective. I like to shoot over the glass from about 10 rows up! This allows for great goaltender photos, and better photos of corner scrums!
After that, I headed back to the parking lot to begin the hour and fifteen minute ride home. Of course, I made it home at about 11:30pm and had to hop right into editing and processing the photos! I hammered all of the photos out the same night, and finished around 2am. I had a lot of fun this night and really enjoy shooting sporting events! Excited to get into more sporting events!
