Shooting both in front and behind yourself?

[Halfrack]

So, I heard a long time ago when shooting, make sure to turn around and see what's behind you - it may be a better photo. When shooting sports, the celebration around scoring - thinking in soccer specifically - I'm actually thinking having a body on my back with a wide angle prime lens and a wired remote (set it to low speed continuous shooting). That way when I'm looking at the player, shooting, I'm also getting the fan reaction behind me, looking at the same player.

Any ideas or thoughts on this? Grab one of the body harnesses and wear it backwards?

 

[Drizzt321]

Interesting. If there's some way you can have it on something sorta like a steadicam which auto-levels it pretty well, that'd be great to use since it might be wildly off horizontal. Might end up as a good shot, but you never know.

Otherwise, you'd also need to be careful about backing up and running into something/someone.

 

[JasonATL]

I wouldn't expect great results. Yes, out of 1000 pictures, there MIGHT be a couple of keepers. In essence, you might get lucky. But, this sounds an awful lot like you have taken the most important piece of equipment out of the equation: the photographer's eye.

If it were this easy to get a good shot, then why doesn't your employer (or whoever has hired the photographer to take pictures) just mount 1, 2, 3,... heck, 20, cameras on a stick at the stadium, pointed at different angles and areas, and set it to take pictures every few seconds, rather than paying the photographer?

I don't earn my living with my camera. But if I did, I would find this idea either somewhat insulting, or more likely, just plain naive. It reminds me of a comment I've overheard people make when meaning to compliment a photographer by saying, "You have a really nice camera. It sure takes nice pictures."

In short, my view is that the idea you started with - "look behind you" - means just that. And, thank you for that reminder, because it is good advice that I often forget!

 

[DB]

For video that makes sense (multi-cam), but not really for photography

 

[distant.star]

.
You're ahead of your time. Next year all the pro sports photographers will be doing this!

 

[picturesbyme]

It's like everything else.. you practice (preferably not at the wedding ) and you get better....

Watch this! Gene has some pretty good results.

http://youtu.be/e-WxCoDewbY

 

[bdunbar79]

I would say don't do that, and it's unecessary. Just turn around quickly. Have two cameras, each on a monopod, one in each arm. It's pretty easy actually as I've done similar.

 

[dr croubie]

Are you perhaps in the market for one of these?

Or maybe you're thinking of this guy?

Or, just buy one of these and be done with it...

 

[Richard Lane]

I usually just wear one on these on my chest, and the other one on the back of my helmet, and then I can view the events on my LCD wrist cam or iphone. 8)

http://gopro.com/hd-hero-accessories/lcd-bacpac/#videoTabArea

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VSwa0P-Kpp4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Halfrack]

I would say don't do that, and it's unecessary. Just turn around quickly. Have two cameras, each on a monopod, one in each arm. It's pretty easy actually as I've done similar.

I actually shoot with 2 cameras on a single tripod (70-200 on the left, 300 on the right), with a third sporting a wide angle on my hip. Just thinking out loud... I saw an NFL guy walking around with 4 Canon bodies and wide lenses on a pole to shoot all 4 directions at once - Superbowl maybe??

Yes, a composed shot is true money, but when you've got lots of people moving around, with a championship won, spray and pray may be the only option.