A few days ago, I visited Carl Sandburg High School in Orland Park to photograph some of the tennis players during the team's practice. This was my first try at capturing pictures of this sport.

The photo shoot was scheduled for 3:30 PM on a Friday. I hoped for clouds as I don't like the high contrast images that result from harsh sunlight. The practice started out with a clear sky and some difficult lighting, but eventually some clouds diffused the light and led to more appealing pictures.

My goal was to create "sportraits". To me, a "sportrait" is a portrait of an athlete captured while they are playing a sport. My goal is to produce a tack sharp image in which the player's face is clearly visible, the expression is appropriate, and the ball is in the frame.

The keeper rate for this kind of session is quite low. I set the camera for a very wide aperture in order to blur the background as much as possible. The downside of this is that the field of acceptable focus is very narrow which leads to more out of focus frames. Also, the ball isn't in the frame for very long. Finally, the poses and expressions are very awkward in a high percentage of the frames. In the end, I shot 2,000 frames. 250 were keepers. I thought about 130 were worth editing.

To maximize the success rate, I used a few approaches. First, I looked for the court with the cleanest background. A few of the courts had blue windscreens along the fence--so I shot in that direction. Without the windscreen, the backgrounds would have been cluttered and the pictures would have been a mess. Next, I set the camera for a high shutter speed to stop the action (usually about 1/5000th of a second). I used the rapid burst feature of my Nikon D700 to achieve a high frame rate of approximately 8 frames per second. This can be achieved by inserting eight AA batteries into the battery grip.

Since this was a practice, I positioned myself on the court. Sometimes, I was just behind the net with tennis balls flying a few feet over my head (and my lens). In part because I was in the middle of the action, the players didn't always hitting the ball as hard as they otherwise might--which didn't result in realistic images. It's challenging getting players to move as if they are playing in a real match. Fortunately, all the players were cooperative and polite--and a pleasure to work with. Occasionally, the action resembled that of a real match.

After the images are captured, it's time to process them. I found that the highlight and shadow recovery sliders within Lightroom 6 were very helpful when processing many of the images from this photo shoot. Many times, I cloned out extra tennis balls that were laying in the background. Sometimes, I added some blur to the background. A few times I moved the tennis ball to a more appealing position within the frame. I almost always added a vignette to direct the viewer's eye to the subject of the picture--the player.

CLICK HERE to view 25 images from the photo shoot.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Rick SmithRick Smith of the Sandburg High School tennis team at 13300 South La Grange Road in Orland Park, Illinois on May 1, 2015 Jonluke PassettJonluke Passett of the Sandburg High School tennis team at 13300 South La Grange Road in Orland Park, Illinois on May 1, 2015 Trent SichelskiTrent Sichelski of the Sandburg High School tennis team at 13300 South La Grange Road in Orland Park, Illinois on May 1, 2015