Student Legacy Park

OSU students scrimmage for fun at Student Legacy Park. Often times students can be found playing soccer, frisbee, and basketball in the evenings on the turf field.

Juán Gabriel Vasques drippes past Preciosa Martínez to make a shot on goal. Vasques is from Colombia, where he learned his superior foot skills.

Many of the students playing were international and explained that they came to the United States for school because their older siblings have had good experiences at US colleges.

I shot a soccer scrimmage at OSU's Student Legacy Park fields because I have not shot a sport in a while and decided to challenge myself with the lense I have. I was shooting with a 70-300m with a 4. aperture... so not exactly the best lens for shooting sports. Conveniently though, this match was going on after my shift at Dixon Rec Sports and the stadium lights were on. I appreciate the spontinuity of this shoot too. My schedule has been packed lately, but this match was going on between work and other plans I had later that night. I am happy with how the photos turned out, even though I struggled with the grain on several. I knew going into it that they might be grainy or turn out how I would like them to. About 10 minutes after I started shooting, it started raining rate. I should invest in some rain gear for my camera, but for that situation, I think the rain was perfect. It was typical Oregon! On and off raining and students not even being phased by it.

As I approached the group, I waited for someone to make a goal or lose a ball to go up and ask. They were very excited about it and asked what it was for. Some of them chatted with me while playing and they all happily gave me their names afterward. To get those shots, I walked around the field, got closer to the goalposts, but tried to stay out of the way. I find it hard sometimes to keep subjects in the frame while following the action, but I focused on fixing that and it resulted in more successful photos.

If I could redo this exact assignment, I would have looked into getting a better lense or asking more questions. Overall though I enjoyed the experience... trying something different with an imperfect lense, getting to know Juan a bit (he is from Colombia and we bonded over our love for the country), and the rain of course, because what is Oregon without rain to mix things up?