Sports backgrounds

[gardener]

No pro here and I sell nothing but I take lots of pics of my grandbrat's soccer and baseball games (under 12 bball and under 8 soccer). As I may have mentioned before, I take the game pics and burn them to a CD for the team moms who then distribute pics to the parents if they want them... I've been doing this for two reasons... 1. I'm going to be there anyway to watch my grandkids play and 2. it gives me more practice time with the camera and various lenses for my own benefit... besides, it's fun. I keep good shots of my own little kinfolks and delete the rest as soon as the CD is delivered to Team Mom A or B.
I think I'm getting along well with the ISO vs lens choices vs all the tricky little things that one needs to learn about sports photography but am extremely dissatisfied with the backgrounds I'm getting regardless of how good an individual kid pic turns out. Parents, autos, people walking around the fields, trash cans, Porta Potties, just on and on and on... The baseball shots are a little more predictable in that at least one doesn't have a million people walking everywhere around the fields although because of placement, it's frequently hard to mask the inevitable parking lot background at some fields. Small kid soccer in Mesquite though, is a different story in that parents and fans can literally stand/sit just about anywhere around the field they choose and frequently do. I do my best to weed out the finger up the nose butt scratchers as well as the down the blouse up the shorts backgrounds on the opposite side but at times, the pic is too good to delete just because of some goober standing in the background.
I fully realize that this is just part of little kid sports and I have to adjust my expectations but is there an easy way to remove or replace a bad background without having to Photoshop something to death? Or do parents even care if a porta potty is far in the background of their child's picture? Baseball on field access is practically non existant here so that's out and in fact, I'm learning to work with what positions are open to me for shooting so another photography lesson without even trying (even through the chain link isn't bad if you can get the angle right). Soccer access is great but alas, that goes for everyone else on the many pitches close beside one another in this particular venue (Eastfield College fields) and while I've found a few spots near the ends of any particular field to be acceptable, it's not always a viable option depending on the play on that particular day.
So... what to do? Still in the learning stage here and the kid pics are getting better but the backgrounds are just too distracting to make the kid the center of attention as they should be. As noted, I'm not selling anything but who knows, maybe at some point that might be an option. I'm also not competing with the roving "pros" out there if that's an issue to someone who makes their living taking kid sports pics as the only teams I shoot have one of my grandkids on them...
One doesn't learn by striving to be among the mediocre so therefore the post... Any tips and hints will be much appreciated.

[boxofrocks]

Gardner,

PS is the best way to go. you can get creative and do stuff like the poster below:



If you don't want to spend an inordinate amount of time in PS, just use the clone stamp to cover up parents and porta-potties. You'll find with a little practice, you can do it in just a few clicks.

There were parents in the original version of this taking pictures of the girls in the photo below. I spent about 1 minute with the clone stamp, and they're gone!