Finally Photographing Xavier Men’s Basketball Again

The last time that I photographed the Xavier men’s basketball team was in 2019. They were at Butler for a Big East game. My time working with Xavier sort of started by accident. After photographing for Washington in the Final Four in 2016 they asked me to go to Vanderbilt to photograph their baseball team in the NCAA Tournament. I needed one team to make the trip more than just a break even trip, and Xavier was that team. They were amazing during that weekend, and it started a long, fun relationship that luckily is still going on. They are still the only school that I have made photos for that has brought me birthday presents. It is the little things that make the difference, and they have been good to me over the last seven or so years. It was really good to see some familiar faces again last night.

The Under Basket Remote

For the first half and some of the second half my under basket remote was not working right. I spent some time trying to get it working. The Sony ports for these devices are not the best, and the connections can go bad very easily. For a remote like this all you need is one image though, and the one above was my favorite from the night. It is a good way to get a couple looks at a big play. Here the new bright lights of Mackey allow me to use my 12-24mm lens to really get wide. I might have to play around with this idea more as the year goes on.

The First Big Play

When I am making photos like this for a school I am always a little nervous until I make the first good photo. Luckily last night I made it pretty quick thanks to a good look at the basket here. Once you make that first photo it makes the rest come much easier.

Think Like It Is Xavier

One great thing about working for Xavier over the years was getting my photos in their magazine. I am not going to lie, once I found out about the magazine I started making images with it in mind. The magazine starts off with a section much like the old Leading Off portion of Sports Illustrated. I would go to games and try and make an image for that section in pregame. I would try and come up with something that was planned, but also of course be aware and make changes on the fly. That led to me always thinking about making a Xavier image before an event. I would preplan something that if it worked could be a cool feature image. It was cool to make a Xavier image for Xavier again.

Working For A School

I have said it before, but I would always prefer to work with someone to make photos. This year my way onto the court is with a wire service. I have always said that the wires just come in and take photos. When you are working with a team you can help make them. It was nice to get back to what I like for a night.

A Busy Weekend

This past weekend I photographed six events in four days. It is just that time of year. During crossover season I end up really busy before things go back to a trickle. When I played sports I always thought that I played better once I broke a sweat. I feel that is the same with photography. The more events I cover the better images I think that I make. When I was first starting out (and still to this day) I really looked up to Matt Kryger. He just made images that were different. He was always busy making them somewhere too. I always thought that part of what made him so good was the fact that he was always making images. If all goes well tonight I will have some more images to make. This will be four straight days of basketball for me. Before the shutdown I felt that basketball was my weakest sport. Part of my goals coming out of it was to get better. Last year I photographed a lot of basketball getting paid for very little of it. The goal was to get better. To make basketball a sport that was easy to photograph. I still don’t think that it is easy, but I am starting to feel a groove when it comes to making basketball photos. I am now caught up on the blog from the busy weekend. You can see some of my favorite images from the last few days in the previous few posts. I saw some high school football, college football, and then high school and college basketball. This is the time of year when being flexible in what you photograph a good thing.

Watching This Kid Grow Up

One sign that I have been doing this too long are the halftime acts that I know really well. I feel like I have been photographing this young man since he was born. He is part of his families balancing act that I seem to see a couple of times every year. It must be how things work out that I am working for the opponent this time every year when they come to town. As he grows it makes his fathers part of their act a little tougher raising him up over his head.