If you are shooting sports for work or even just for fun. There is a chance that you will eventually be shooting the same things over and over. Does anyone out there have interesting tricks to help them keep it fresh?
I like to give myself little themes or targets to try and capture when there is little or no action going on. For example a scrum is a scrum is a scrum. You seldom see the ball or many of the faces so the shots aren't interesting unless you can catch someone doing something interesting.
Or how about shirt Blackjack. When the play is heading away from you (and therefore unlikely to yield interesting shots) try to grab a shot that includes at least two players and whose combined total of their shirt numbers is as close to 21 as possible without going over.
I like to always try and find new sports to photograph! When im getting bored with it, I really try and tell a different side of the story, for example, when I am photographing baseball which is quite often during the season, I often feel like I get a lot of the same shots, so I focus more into the dugout and get player reactions, the gear in there as well as seeds, water etc. anything that can tell what happens in the dugout. Or I focus on the fans sometimes, going into the stands and getting a photo from the fans perspective maybe with some fans in the photos. And I am always, always trying new angles and working with blurred foreground and leading lines as well. Thats just my thoughts though! That Shirt blackjack is an interesting concept haha!
Yep know what you mean. Shoot one Rugby scrum and you have shot most all of them. I try shooting the guy standing beyond the scrum or zooming in on just one face. As you say, capturing reactions really works well to bring the game to life.