Tuesday night I covered the Lewis-Palmer hockey team as they headed into the APEX ice rink to face the home team Ralston Valley Mustangs in the first hockey game of the season. I had scouted out the APEX arena a few weeks ago to get an idea of what I would need to do to shoot in this location.
This was the first hockey I was going to shoot since moving to Colorado. The last hockey game I shot was a girls game in Eagle River, and this would be the first time I had ever strobed hockey. I was shooting this game for MaxPreps, and needed to add some light to the arena.
I got to the rink pretty early to set my lights up. Unfortunately, there were peewee players on the ice and parents and coaches and kids walking all over the areas I wanted to set my lights up in. I set my lights up and then pushed my light stands back against the walls out of everyones way so no one would trip over them while they were leaving the ice.
Once the little kids got off the ice, it was time for the high schoolers to take the ice. I placed my lights in their final locations for the game and we were ready. I had heard that Lewis-Palmer was a pretty good team and Ralston Valley was excellent, so I was expecting a pretty good game.
But, being the first game of the season, on Ralston Valley’s home ice, Lewis-Palmer was out matched by the home team Mustangs from the get go. And the home crowd was clearly an advantage to the Blue and Black. Ralston Valley held nothing back as they would beat the visiting Lewis-Palmer team 8-0.
The ice arena at APEX is very nice. It has a silver ceiling, and good light to start with. The problem I have found when shooting on ice, although it is white, it eats light rather than reflecting it. So, I added two Alien Bee AB800 strobes. I pointed the strobes at the ceiling around the blue line of the side I was shooting, but just before mid-ice, the light just dropped.
In the photo above, this is at the light fall cut-off of my strobes. In fact the Ralston Valley player (87) is still being frozen by my strobe, but from the head back of the diving Lewis-Palmer player, he is just at the fringe of my strobes and the ambient light has started to mix with the strobe, giving him a little motion blur. Normally, with motion blur, this photo would go into the garbage, but I liked the dive, so here it is.
One of the things I love about strobes, is the beautiful light and vibrant colors you get. Like the shot of the Ralston Valley goalie above. An ambient light shot of his helmet would not be as colorful as this one. Yes, you can get shadows, but bouncing the strobes lessens the shadows, and yes, you are limited to 1 frame advance instead of the machine gun shooting at 8 frames per second.
To view and purchase photos from this game, please visit the team pages of Lewis-Palmer and Ralston Valley at MaxPreps.com.
