My Grandson's 1st Baseball Tryouts
The day before his tryouts, I found myself sitting on my truck tailgate with my seven year old grandson talking about how much fun his first baseball tryouts were going to be. With his bat in hand, he jumped up and onto the truck bed lid and said "let me show you how my knuckles line up" and he started his practice swings. What a great memory for me store away, at the same time remembering the past excitement of my son's and daughter's baseball and softball practices, games, and conversations of future expectations. Here I go again, camera in hand. It doesn't get any better than this.
I was so excited that once again I was going to a tryout for little ones. I made sure the night before that my backpack was ready with clean camera lenses, that there was plenty of digital card memory, and all batteries were fully charged. My alarm clock went off at 6:00AM and I was ready to go. I didn't want to miss photographing a single swing of the bat, or scoop and throw. When I arrived at the field, I heard this resounding voice call out "PAPA" from beyond the fence. What a great feeling it was to hear the little guy call me and meet at the fence with a quick handshake and fist pump with explosion. I could imagine his nervousness since I began remembering when I was a titch older than him when I had my first tryouts and I was very nervous. I also remember how important it was to see my mom and dad as well as my grandparents sitting in the stands when I had a game.
I quickly scanned the bleachers and saw a whole host of proud parents envisioning their little "Casey" at bat hitting a home run and "touching 'em all" to cheers of the crowd. My observation though was missing a very important aspect, I didn't see any cameras. I was the only one capturing this pivotal moment in these young children's lives. This was one moment in time that I was not going to miss.
I affixed my 70-300mm lens to the camera and worked my way to a stealth position so I wouldn't interfere with the activities but appear and disappear randomly so he knew I was supporting his efforts. I was so proud to be able to capture images of him in traditional baseball pants and practice shirt all topped off with his Angry Birds baseball cap to intimidate the competition. I set my camera on high speed continuous shooting so that I would capture as many frames of the action as possible. Another import aspect of capturing this event was to get the all important pictures with his Mom, Dad, Mema, and Aunt. Everyone needed to be part of this documented event to tell the whole story of his first baseball tryout.
What a great morning and he did fantastic! I truly enjoyed photographing this event and I encourage everyone to bring your camera and capture every event moment of your family. Whether it's the first baseball tryout, ballet recital, school play, or some other type of event, going back and revisiting is very important in a persons life. Don't miss out, enjoy and always remember,
"Moments in time are lived once. Images of those moments live forever."
Have you had a similar experience, I'd like to hear about it.
Ed H.
