Chelsea softball faced Dexter.
After the games, I took a photo of one of the pitchers for an upcoming feature article.
Category Archives: Softball
Photo of the Softball Now: 20 May 2011
Chelsea softball faced Manchester.
At Chelsea’s softball stadium, there are few good open vantage points for photography: there are no breaks or low points in the fence, and the umps often aren’t excited about having a gate open even just a little. (That also puts me in the way of players entering and exiting the field.) The best answer, then, is to shoot over the fence, which leaves one real option: the roofs of the dugouts.
Though it would be nice to be able to shoot the game at field level, the dugout roof does offer two advantages: first, some players are hilariously startled when they see a person in a usually unpopulated location; second, I get a little bit of a different perspective for some interesting photos. This is one such photo:
The other such photo — one of my favorites of the year — is later in this post.
Here’s the other fun photo I got thanks to my spot on top of the dugout:
Photo of the (Manchester) Softball Now: 20 May 2011
Manchester softball faced Chelsea.
One particular Manchester player — the one at second base — made a lot of outs. She had a couple spectacular plays that were impossible to miss, but when I went through the photos, I realized I had a lot of shots of her making plays:
Photo of the (Belleville) Softball Now: 30 April 2011
Belleville — another community covered by a Heritage newspaper — also participated in the softball tournament. Most conveniently for me, they ended up playing Chelsea at the end of the tournament.
The pitcher wore very festive sunglasses.
I’m still learning softball, so maybe some of you more knowledgeable softball folks can help me understand this:
Just before every pitch, this particular baserunner reached out her hands — almost like she was a football receiver reaching for a pass — and waved them. Does that mean something, or is it just her own routine?
Photo of the Softball Now: 30 April 2011
While Chelsea baseball was playing in the Akel Marshall Baseball Invitational, Chelsea softball had its own tournament going on.
Photo of the Softball Now: 23 April 2011
Photo of the (Dexter) Softball Now: 21 April 2011
Dexter softball faced Ann Arbor Huron. Though it was the day after the frigid cold tennis match, it was actually a pleasant sunny spring day nearly perfect for softball. In other words, if the month of April in Michigan were a person, it would require psychiatric treatment.
Oh, but before the pictures, I have to rant as a photographer…
Hey softball jersey designers: why do you delight in putting only one number on jerseys, that being the number on the back? Other sports make a habit of putting the numbers in more than one location on the jersey, thereby ensuring that the players’ numbers are almost always visible. But your jerseys? No, all too often they have the numbers only on the back, thereby forcing me to make an extra effort to ensure I can identify the players in my photos because I seldom shoot worthwhile action photos from behind the players. Do the right thing, jersey designers, and make an effort to put the numbers in more than one location on the jerseys.
And now that I have that off my chest…here are the photos.
Home runs get the whole team involved:
Photo of the Softball Now: 14 April 2011
Chelsea softball faced Ann Arbor Huron. You may notice these are all photos of baserunners; that’s because that’s essentially all Chelsea did in this game. It was…slightly lopsided, and I was short on time to cover softball. The next set of softball photos will be much more varied.
