OK guys really? You think it's that easy to be creative when you're shooting a game by yourself and you have to make CERTAIN that you get EVERY key play? I'm a FL photographer. I shoot for AP and I cover both spring training and regular season MLB games.
Spring training affords us an opportunity to try more creative things because the pressure is not on to get every play (after the 5th when the players whose names people actually know come out). We don't LOSE that creativity when the regular season starts. We just can't experiment. We can't go up into the catwalk or shoot from the bullpen or put a crazy wide angle lens on the top of a large pole and do a hundred other things we'd like to do to make creative images. We're tethered to the photo wells with our eyes peeled and our fingers on the shutter button waiting for something to happen... because heaven forbid we don't have a shot of "that double play in the third" then WE'RE going to hear about it when we call into our desk and they ask for it... because newspapers around the country are expecting it.
We do all of this while fighting for space in photo wells that are way over crowded with fake photographers (like US Press Wire) and trying to edit, tone, caption and transmit photos DURING the game (meaning jumping up and down from our laptops every time we hear the crack of a bat and yet making CERTAIN that we don't make a cutline error or have a comma out of place).
I understand that SOME of you guys want something a little more creative and we'd love to deliver but when we're the only shooter there for our wire service then we HAVE to get THE shot that most papers are looking for, and yes, that's usually the photo of the pitcher hanging his head as the guy who just hit a two-run homer is rounding the bases. If we DON'T get that shot because we were trying something creative while shooting with our wide angle lenses through the yellow bubbles of a fan's over-priced beer then we're going to lose our jobs.
