Rugby Photography

by Wes "Brigham" Clark

In photography, whether sports or other types, always look for the human element. The great thing about rugby is getting the facial features - you can't get them with football or hockey because the helmets are in the way. I once read an article that says you always have to get the ball in the shot. But, like most rules, this can be broken and you can still get an interesting photo. These images are from the 9/25/04 matches with Frederick RFC.

I shoot a Nikon D100 6.1 megapixel digital SLR, with a Nikkor 300mm telephoto zoom lens. I use the basic resolution setting and the small size option. Generally I crank up the "speed" of the sensor to about ASA 1000; using the automatic settings, this forces the camera to use a very fast shutter speed (1/500 or even 1/2000 depending upon the amount of light). This enables me to freeze motion nicely. Afterwards I use Photoshop 7.0.1 to adjust the levels because the Nikon usually shoots somewhat dark (by design), and I also do some color correction because I normally want to warm up the colors a bit. Occasionally I'll use the clone tool to remove distracting background items.

Composition is important in rugby photography, just as it is with other subjects. The problem, however, is that the game is so fast-moving. The only shots where you can really control the composition is in lineouts and scrums. But if you take enough images, interesting compositions just sort of happen when you follow the players.

Some miscellaneous shots and comments.

Some statistics: I took 672 photos, total, during two matches. (I arrived late to the a-side match.) A first sweep to remove out of focus and useless shots (player's backs, etc.) left 398. I posted 60 of the best. The great law of photography is, the more shots you take, the more good ones you'll end up with.