A little bit of luck never hurts

Editor’s note: Sports editor Chris Schanz has taken thousands of photographs since the summer of 2013. In this “Photo Focus” series, he will take a look back at a handful of his favorite pictures and describe the story behind them.

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There is some skill needed when it comes to photography, especially sports photography.

Knowledge of the subject, first and foremost, is imperative. Then it’s the ability to work your way around a camera and its settings. An important aspect of sports photography is knowing where to be in relation to the action. Lastly, it helps to have a keen eye for different angles.

But sometimes, having a breadth of knowledge and experience isn’t necessary.

Sometimes, it’s better to be lucky than good.

I learned early on when shooting baseball to spend the first inning capturing pictures of the pitcher. That way, in case it’s an uneventful game and nothing else happens, an image of the pitcher can tell the story of the game.

An in some cases, the pitcher is the story, as was the instance in my Exceptional Efforts piece Saturday about Jay County High School’s Wyatt Geesaman throwing a perfect game with 18 consecutive strikeouts.

At Parkview Field in Fort Wayne, it’s easy to get pictures of the pitcher in the first inning. The netting behind home plate doesn’t show up in photographs, so there’s no worry about shooting through it.

Generally when I’ve covered TinCaps games, I’ve typically shot the first inning behind home plate. The only problem is there can be a lot of moving parts that can potentially get in the way of a shot: the home plate and field umpires, the catcher, the batter and the pitcher, just to name a few. Depending on where the action is, one or more of those potential obstructions can come into play.

Or based on the game situation, baserunners can get in the way as well. I have a plethora of pictures that would have been great if not for someone else obstructing the action.

(Side note: there’s a Twitter account — @missed_photo — showcasing photographs from professional sports photographers who had potentially excellent images ruined by camera mishaps or obstructions such as officials. I highly recommend following the account if Twitter is your thing.)

On July 18, Lady Luck was completely on my side.

In the top of the first inning, Jonatan Machado of the Peoria Chiefs blooped a pitch into shallow center field toward Juwuan Harris of the TinCaps. Harris charged in and began to slide to catch the ball as Chief Alexis Wilson was making his way to second base from first.

As I saw Harris beginning to slide I focused my camera on him and pressed the shutter to capture the action. Just as Harris made the catch, Machado was in mid stride on his way to first base.

Machado’s stride perfectly framed Harris making the catch in shallow center field, and just to the right of Machado is Wilson watching the catch while advancing to second.

It’s the type of image photographers dream of capturing; an unintended framing of the action by someone else involved.

I’ve been sports editor for almost seven years now, and I have never captured a similar image. Granted, I haven’t put forth much effort in an attempt to do so because it’s a challenging task.

But getting lucky every now and again isn’t so bad.