Intentional downing

"Football safety Zach Dean is among many seniors that leads first-year teams at Westlake High School."

I love shooting sportraits when I have an nice set of lights. But it's hard to shoot them when the batteries are dead.

Last week, I headed out to Saratoga Springs to photograph a group portrait of senior athletes at Westlake High School. The story being about the first year school and how these athletes came from other schools and will only serve as a leader for one season.

I showed up early to scout some locations. After walking around, I thought under the East side bleachers would be awesome. Not too exciting, but I liked it.

The light coming through the thin, metal seating created this amazing light. I planned on underexposing a couple stops to make the light create this great pattern. But I still had no athletes. I was sitting there waiting on reporter to find me what players from what sports I need to photograph.

The sun was setting fast and my window of time was going quick. Alas, before I knew it, my pattern and nice light was long gone. My 5:00 p.m. assignment turned in a 6:00 p.m. assignment.

Once I had my players, I went to "Plan B" and loved what I was about to shoot. Well, about 10 frames into shooting, the battery on work's no-name-light died. The huge external battery wasn't charged. Doh!

I kicked it off and let it build a little extra juice. After turning it back on, I got five frames out of it before it wouldn't turn back on at all. Three were of the group of players. Two were of two players individually for fun.

For the above, I knew the light wouldn't make it to his eyes, and cranked every last bit of power out of the light.

I don't know why, but I liked it. Only wish I would have had more juice to keep playing around.