Hot on the heels of returning from the Peter Read Miller Workshop, I headed out to California last week for the Sports Shooter Academy, a workshop in Orange County put on by Robert Hanashiro of USA Today and freelance photographer Matt Brown.

For the first day of the workshop, I picked the high-speed sync lighting session with photographic genius Dave Black, one of my favorite shooters in the business.

By using a neutral density filter and the wireless high-speed sync feature on my PocketWizard FlexTT5 radios, I was able to shoot wide open at f/1.4 on a loaner 85mm lens from NPS. Above, fellow student Clayton Hotze helps me test one of the lights.

By shooting at a high shutter speed, I was able to easily balance the light on the soccer players with the deep blue skies.

It also allowed me to effectively stop the fast-moving action of the player’s foot.

One of the best parts of the workshop is the support students receive from the sponsors. It was great to see my friend Ian Ray from PocketWizard, who I met at Eddie Adams in the fall. I have worked with Ian and the PocketWizard team in the past on testing some of their new products, and they have been incredibly helpful to me both as a student and as a working photographer. Here, Ian helped me test my lighting before I made the portrait below.

Dave Black’s advice for lighting was simple: only light parts of your image. I used a feathered SB-900 zoomed in to 200mm to focus a tight beam of light on my subject, Cal State Fullerton senior Andrew Afia.

After the shoot, we had to climb the grandstands while carrying our heavy roller bags. Fellow student Lorenzo Zemella shared my pain.

Day two began with a snafu. After arriving at UC Irvine for the track meet we planned to shoot, we were informed that the meet had been moved to the following day. Luckily, Matt was able to line up a baseball and lacrosse game for us to shoot instead.

I spent most of the baseball game exploring how I could use a 600mm lens and a 1.4 teleconverter (850mm total) to take a fresh eye to covering the sport. My favorite shot was when I used the long focal length to compress the perspective between the pitcher and an American flag in the outfield.

At lacrosse, I dropped the teleconverter and shot from behind one of the goals as the sun set across the field.

As we headed back to my rental car after the game, a couple of us stopped to enjoy watching the sun set over the baseball field.

After several dozen failed shots, I made this frame of Lorenzo, Jane, and I. As you can tell, I got quite a bit of sun that day! Jane and I covered a couple Sounders, Mariners, and Storm games together in Seattle last summer while I interned at the Times, and it was great to see an old friend again.

Day three began with shooting portraits at Long Beach State. LA Times staff photographer Wally Skalij showed us how to work with the pockets of light created by the sun filtering through tree branches.

With his help, I made the image below of volleyball player Laura Ratto, using only natural light.

Our second setup was in front of the Walter Pyramid, a peculiar blue structure that houses a basketball court.

Our second shoot was back at UC Irvine for the track meet we attempted to shoot earlier in the week. Needless to say, we made it look like the gold medal heat of the Olympics with all of our remote cameras.

My favorite image from my remote came on the first lap of the men’s steeplechase.

With the help of Ian, I attempted to light the steeplechase with wireless high speed sync. Here, Jane stands in for a test shot.

I say attempted because it was incredibly difficult to time the landing of the runners hitting the water. My favorite image from the lights came from my corner remote that happend to catch one of the flashes.

For the final day of the Academy, I picked the portrait session with roller derby athletes.

As I was testing my lights for one of the portraits, Nikon’s Ronal Taniwaki walked in with a cigar and helped us hone our setups.

After the shoot, Lorenzo, Annika, and I headed out to Huntington Beach to shoot surfing.

Unfortunately, heavy cloud cover made it tough to shoot. We decided to call it a day and spend the rest of our time relaxing on the beach.

Needless to say, us photographers don’t spend much time in the sun with our shoes off!

Back at the hotel, we turned in our edits and said our goodbyes. After just a couple of days, it was amazing how much we had grown together as a group of photographers.Of course, none of this would have been possible without the incredible support of the companies who help make the workshop happen. Thanks to Nikon, students were able to attend the workshop tuition-free, making the weeklong adventure affordable for those of us still in college. I’ve been lucky enough to go to two workshops supported by Nikon this year, SSAIX and Eddie Adams. It’s great to see companies support the education of their current (and future) customers.

This quarter has been defined by my work for VICO 486, the final shooting class of my time at Ohio University. Here is a frame from project I am starting to develop.

As part of my documentary project on the Athens music scene, I photographed B.o.B. and Far East Movement at the Convocation Center in Athens, OH. Included are some of my favorite images, as well as two time-lapse videos. The video above was shot from 7pm until 5am.

For my documentary class this quarter, I have been shooting the Athens music scene.

This year’s edition of Soul of Athens has launched, and my project, Wee Wrestling, is one of the several selected to be featured. Take a look.