A Journey Through the Lens

A TRAVELERS GUIDE TO AWAY GAME CONTENT COVERAGE THROUGH MY EYES

As a team photographer my job is to capture the action on the field and tell a story, through photos, about a game, or an event. However, I try to take our followers on a journey behind the scenes on what it takes to put eleven of these guys on the field week after week.

Our home is Southwest University Park in the heart of Downtown El Paso, TX. Home games I often wear many different hats on any typical game day and cover as much ground as possible from a creative perspective. However, on the road with the team I find it as new opportunities to tell a different story, from beginning to end, about who this team is, and their heart, and desire to win.

BEGINNING THE JOURNEY

Any journey starts at the launchpad, and for El Paso Locomotive FC on March 5th that launchpad was the El Paso International Airport.

The first step on my coverage list is to get the guys arriving top the airport, sort of as a start to the trip point of reference. One by one as the players start to arrive I am snapping photos of them as they come in with their bags, and various travel essentials.

Once the crew arrives it's up to TSA and off to the gates.

(Pro Tip for Team Photogs: TSA Pre-check is a MUST! Especially when you're traveling with 4 different cameras and a laptop in your bags)

After everyone is through security and settled into the gate, I am on a mission to get the team interacting with each other and the environment they are in. An important piece to my coverage is capturing both environment and player, in two images almost like environmental portraits. The airport offers several key locators and details you can play with.

While the airport can be treasure trove of colors and details for travel content, it can become repetitive 4-5 trips down the road, so for me it is important to bring the travel content focus back on the players. Another element I focus on is the travel essentials or "Travel Drip" as I like to call it.

Even though they will be spending the next 4-5 hours of their day traveling, the boys don't have a problem "showing out".

I like to let the people on social media know what we are working with as far as travel, plus it opens the door to people getting to see a little bit more of each player on a personal level.

(Pro Tip #2: Airport Lighting is horrible, so if you come out with a bunch of blurry pictures, just gif em and hope nobody really notices or cares. The movement will help paint the picture clearer in the long run)

BY PLANE BY BUS

Sometimes it's as easy as a 1 1/2 hour plane ride to whichever destination we are going to, other times it's another 1 1/2 hour bus ride from LAX to Irvine, California.

The travel is long, but it gives me a great opportunity to get another aspect of content.

When in doubt bus window refections/lighting will be your friend.

Editing on a bus, plane, train, backseat of a car, etc. will never get easier, it's just a a part of the job.

Once you get to wherever you are going, I make sure to get at least one good photo as another indicator to put on social media, thats says "We are here".

The photo shows the signature California palm trees, one of our players in his travel gear, and him bringing a team bag into the hotel. All the perfect elements to an "arrived" photo.

Once I get everything out on social media, enjoy some team dinner and get settled in my room, it's back to editing mode. While capturing and posting photos along the way, I shot some video to accompany a larger scale piece that would re-cap the day of travel. I chose a song that I thought had a good California vibe to it, edited the photos and videos to that beat and scheduled it to be posted that next morning.

MATCH DAY - WAKE UP TO FINAL WHISTLE

Morning of matchday starts off with team breakfast, gear prep, last minute charges and then activation for the guys.

Activation is a lot of the same every trip so I try to spice it up with the same environmental portraits as I did in the airport.

Most of the shots I take for these are vertical so with the leftover shots that are horizontal, I play around with to get some variation in content for different social media platforms.

Post activation for most trips I take as an opportunity to either rest, or explore whichever city I am in. However, for 2020 I decided I wanted to give fans a location indicator and jersey preview for each away trip, something to say "this is where we are playing tonight and this is what we are wearing."

I did some research going into Orange County on places that would be good landmarks to take photos/videos from that aren't too far from our hotel. In doing research I found out there was a giant air balloon ride smack in the middle of Great Park sports complex, where the Orange County SC stadium was located. I thought myself "if you don't have a drone, an air balloon is the best way to get some aerials."

Normally I would ask one of the players to come with me to model, but I figured best not to disturb them on match day. So I got our Kitman Keeler to come with me and he would model the Jersey for me.

(Pro Tip #3: Don't get on the bad side of your kitman, he controls the gear, you need the gear i.e. you need your kitman)

We go in our rental van, with the kit and my video camera and Canon 5d Mark IV and headed to Great Park. I had read online that it would be $5 a person, but arrived to find out the ride was free, and the weather was beautiful, so sometimes it's just about getting lucky.

The ballon went straight up 400 feet and stayed there for about 10 minutes, then came back down. The ballon itself was massive and was attached to a doughnut shaped platform allowing passenger to walk around the ballon and check out the views all the way around.

Normally I would have the Sony A7rii with me but my co-worker had taken it with him for Padres Spring Training. I knew I wouldn't get the smooth transition I wanted with the Canon 5D Mark IV and my 300 mm lens, so I brought along our Sony camcorder that shot in 1080 HD and had an internal zoom.

When we headed up in the balloon my first mission was film a nice smooth zoom from the Stadium to the modeled kit. At 400 ft high we had a perfect view of the stadium, and the shot wen't just as I had envisioned it. I took the opportunity to take a wide variety of content both photo and video in order to spread out the different pieces as kick off time came closer, and also because when would I be in a air balloon 400 ft in the sky again.

KIT REVEAL VIDEO

FOCUS SHIFT - What we're wearing, where we're playing

MATCH DAY POSTER

Once we came down from the balloon I wen't straight to editing back at the hotel and waited a couple of hours for Adventure #2 with Kit man Keeler.

STADIUM - PRE-ARRIVAL

Usually Kit Man K get's to the stadium 3 hours before the team is scheduled to get there, in order to set up the locker and prep from them to get there. I always tag along with him to get stadium content before the team arrives.

One thing I always make sure to do is get close up environmental shots to set as the background for my environmental portraits I'll get when the team gets to the stadium.

The next thing I do is another locator to let fans know where we are playing tonight. Last year I would post a photo from the ground level of the soccer field with the stadium in the background and call it #ViewsFromThePitch. However, for 2020 I wanted to do something that would be different yet still capture the same message.

Emily Johnson, a sports producer in New York, created a series where she takes two similar photos from each side of a basketball court and calls it #2Sides2EveryCourt

I thought this would be a perfect idea to put into my travel idea notebook and make it work for soccer. I came up with #TwoSidesToEveryGoal and that would be the new locator for away stadiums

Following that, it was time for the players and coaches to arrive, I posted up outside the stadium and waited for the bus to arrive.

Let me say it louder for the people in the back, BUS REFLECTIONS WILL NEVER DO YOU DIRTY!

The players always set down their things and check out the pitch, and that is where I take my opportunity to add to my environmental portraits.

It was also the opening day for all USL play across the league so I decided to give them a little shout out on social media with this gif.

GAMETIME

From that point on the guys got dressed, I pushed out balloon and stadium content right up until they had to walk out for anthem.

If you haven't noticed by now my aesthetic is the wide lens and middling my subject and sometimes the lighting in a dark hallway outside of the locker room gives you exactly what you're looking for.

Pregame ceremonies start and I post up outside the entrance of the team walkout. Referees will always get in your way so just try to avoid them as much as possible.

Usually once the national anthem starts I run up next to the players lined up and get some close up shots. In other instances the opposing team photographer/videographer is doing the same thing, but for whatever reason nobody else was. I used it as an opportunity to switch out my 16-35 for my 300mm and got some shots of the guys lined up with some good depth in the background. Not what I had intended, but you have to learn to improvise on away trips.

I know exactly how the team warms up after coin toss so I position myself outside the circle and wait for the explosion.

It's taken me several times of almost getting run over to get shots like this, but I think I've finally gotten the timing down for Season 2. Low Lighting again so the handy ol gif comes in clutch.

In preseason I had been practicing getting some shots from inside the team huddle and have had decent results. I wanted to really get involved this time and get as low as possible. Once the team was warm and ready for kick off, I ran into their huddle.

(Pro Tip #4: Get in the guys face with the camera as much as possible, so that when the time comes to get the shot they won't even pay attention to the fact that you are literally in their huddle laying on the ground)

The photo was exactly what I wanted, but I also said why stop there. Snap away and make it move.

WHISTLE First 45

On any given match you can find me posted up on either side of the goal, either far left or far right, waiting for the perfect shot.

We had a few close calls in the first half, and even a goal that was unfortunately called offside, but that didn't stop me from posting the photos as a halftime update.

I often shoot photos dark in order to preserve my shutter speed. I leave my settings set at 1/600, f2.8, 800 ISO and using my 300 mm. With that combination I am able to get the high motion shot, while maintaining the integrity of the photo with little blur. With the photo I use my stadium game preset, make a few minor adjustments and it's good to go to social media.

Below is a side by side comparison or RAW & Edited:

FINAL WHISTLE FT 90

At the end of the game I make sure I get the photos I need for the post FT time post, but also have my video camera ready to interview coach and a few of the key players on the pitch right after the final whistle.

I post a series of these video snippets throughout the night, just because the fans want to here it more directly from the guys themselves rather than from my characters on twitter.

Once the posting is done for the night, I hit the hay, and get ready for a plane ride full of editing what I got from the night before that I didn't use.

I save some posts for the next day as we all head home, and wrap up the first away game of the season, ready to do it all again the same yet different as the next one comes around.

BY RYAN ORTEGON