PDX Media Day: Sports Photograp

Photo by: Oleg Dunbyna courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

By Hailey Dunst

On March 8, I attended PDX Media Day at the University of Oregon where I participated in many lectures to further develop my knowledge of the world of media. My personal favorite was the athletic photography talk as it covered many points important in capturing a good play, touchdown, or tackle. The talk was led by Craig Mitchelldyer, a photographer featured in numerous publications.

As stated on his website, Mitchelldyer Photography “[Mitchelldyer’s] clients include the Portland Timbers MLS team, Adidas, Nike, Intel, law firms, financial companies, and hundreds of magazines you may have never heard of.” It also states that he has been photographing in Portland for over 20 years and doesn’t plan on ending his career soon. He talked about how he always looks for the right angle to capture the perfect emotion, light, and most importantly background.

Mitchelldyer told us how and when to use different camera lenses and how to incorporate weather into your photos. There is almost never ‘bad lighting’ unless it’s pitch black because you just need to know how to use the light the right way. A lot of the time you should wait for the action to come to you if you have an angle with good lighting and a good background because nothing works in the shadows, no matter how important the play was, he told us there’s no point so might as well wait in the sun. This talk was very intriguing and made me want to photograph sports.