British Baseball Federation

Project COBB (the Project for the Chronicling of British Baseball) is an online collaboration that was founded by Joe Gray in 2008. It received recognition as a Chartered Community of the Society for American Baseball Research (better known as SABR) in 2010.

The initiative has three overarching aims: [1] to support efforts to research and publish historical details of British baseball; [2] to help make digitized copies of British baseball artefacts available online; and [3] to promote the preservation of British baseball history today, through scoring and photography.

Joe Gray acts as coordinator for Project COBB, but its success depends largely on the work of its valued collaborators, mostly members of the British baseball community.

This is the third in a series of four articles in which Joe outlines ways in which members of the community can help to enhance the work of Project Cobb. 

This initiative relates to Point Three of Project COBB’s three-point mission:

“To promote the preservation of baseball history today through scoring and photography.”

High-quality photographs constitute a resource of immeasurable value for preserving the history of baseball in Britain. But you do not need to be a professional photographer to take baseball photos with a professional feel.

Eight tips for photographing baseball in Britain:

1. To allow you to take a good range of action shots, you’ll need a lens that allows you to at least “fill the frame” with a pitcher on the mound from the closest point at the edge of the field. A 300mm lens should be sufficient on a digital SLR or “single-lens reflex” system (the magnification numbers will be different for other systems). With this type of zoom, you should be able to get good shots of home plate, the pitcher, and action around first base and third base. (For those photographers with greater zoom on their lenses, opportunities open up for more action shots, such as the turning of double-plays around second base or diving catches in the outfield.)
    
2. If you don’t have a lens with the zoom capability described in Point 1, don’t worry — you can still capture great shots. For example, you could specialise in wide-angle photos, or you could consider capturing less obvious elements of the game such as the players’ bench or a group of spectators. Alternatively, be creative with ways to get closer to the action: capture players during their pre-game preparations, for instance, or photograph a bullpen warm-up. Do bear in mind, though, that without a decent zoom capability on your lens, you may not be able to make the background go out of focus, if this is an effect you wish to achieve.
    
3. Unless your background is sufficiently out of focus for it to not distract from the subject, as described in Point 2, remember to check what is lurking in the periphery of the image, even if you intend to crop the shot later. A stray plastic bag or ugly bit of fencing behind the main subject can ruin an otherwise brilliant image. Alternatively, a dozing spectator or disinterested dog could enhance the shot, depending on your desired effect.
    
4. To increase the variety of your photos, don’t just stay in one spot. Positioning yourself to focus on third base gives you a chance to get a slide in a cloud of dust, but such plays are infrequent. Getting close to first base will give a greater rate of action, although only pick-off attempts are likely to generate dives and dirt clouds. Alternatively, experiment with pressing your lens up to the backstop. You should find that you can focus through a hole in the fencing such that, depending on the nature of the material, your shots are not obstructed. And even if you get some fencing creeping in at the edge of your shot, simple cropping will give you a perfect photo.
    
5. A tripod will help you steady non-moving items in your shots, and some lenses or camera systems have an image stabilization feature that can also be of benefit, particularly when using zoom. Even without such aids, most photographers are able to get shake-free shots with a shutter speed of 1/125 of a second, and some are happy to go as low as 1/30 of a second (unless zooming into a subject at some distance). However, if you are snapping something that is moving, motion blur will come into effect unless you have a high shutter speed. This is not to say that you should always try to eliminate motion blur, however, as it can be an effective addition to some shots. You may need to go to 1/500 of a second or even faster to properly freeze a batter’s swing or a pitcher’s release (depending on your angle and their speed).
    
6. With Point 5 in mind, you’ll be looking for good light levels to allow you to use a shutter speed that will freeze the action without relying on an aperture that is so wide that you lose too much depth of focus or an ISO that is so high that your image becomes grainy (that is, unless you are lucky enough to have a very fast, light-vacuuming lens). If the conditions are too bright, though, you might find that excessive contrast is spoiling your pictures, so don’t assume you can only take shots when the sun is not being obscured by cloud.
    
7. Another element that can make or break a photo is whether or not you can get individuals’ eyes into the photo. A shot of a batter, for instance, could be greatly improved by capturing his or her eyes, compared with having the eyes obstructed by the brim of the helmet or the peak of the cap.
    
8. You can use your knowledge of the game to help you get the shot you want. For instance, with a runner on third and fewer than two outs, you might want to set yourself up to capture a slide at home plate on a sacrifice fly attempt. Or, with a runner on first and a pitcher who likes to try pick-offs, consider moving close to first base. The best camera equipment in the world is no substitute for knowledge of the game.

Remember to store and label your photos properly

Once you get home (assuming you are on a digital system), remember to select your best shots for permanent storage and to add player names and other details as tags or in their file names, so that your photos truly become pieces of history.

Where Project COBB fits in:

One of the three overarching aims of Project COBB is to promote the preservation of British baseball history today, and photography is one of two means of doing so that have been highlighted as being particularly important (the other is scoring).

Project COBB can help promote and preserve any photos that you take of British baseball, by means such as posting them in galleries on its website and adding them to the British baseball archives. In addition, Project COBB coordinates an annual British Baseball Photography Competition, with a prize of £100 in photography vouchers (correct at the time of writing).