The Week In Sports

This was a crazy week plus for my sports photography. It started over a week ago last Friday with two days at the Big Ten Track and Field Championships in Indy. On Sunday I photographed the final Purdue women’s game of the season. Tuesday night I was at the final home game for the Purdue men’s basketball team. The following day I photographed three games at the Big Ten women’s tournament for the Big Ten. Most likely those were the final basketball games of my season. To photograph five in four days is a pretty good way to go out. When this post goes live I should be getting ready for my first softball games of the year. It is that time of year when the sports start to shift. Here are a few fun stories from the last week (or so) of my sports photography.

Everything Was A Blur

Friday and Saturday of last week I was at the Indiana State Fairgrounds for the Big Ten Indoor Track and Field Championships. It was two long days that at the same time seemed to fly by. At one point on Friday I slowed my shutter down to make this photo to kind of show how fast things were going. There were not many clean backgrounds at the event, but this one here worked very well.

Some Local Talent

During the DMR race I had nobody in this heat and I saw that Purdue was running. One of the members of that DMR team Caleb Williams went to Harrison. It is always nice to see a local boy doing well. I moved to a spot where I could make a photo of Caleb in the corner with the Big Ten logo in the frame. I like how this turned out.

All The Praise

Purdue has a triple jumper named Praise Aniamaka who is really good. I was at the end of the runway with two of the Michigan jumpers that I was covering. They were coming up, but Praise had to go first. He was trying to pump up the crowd here, and it was too good of a photo not to make it. It looks like a post jump celebration, but it was before he even got up onto the runway.

Finding A Background

For this tournament I spent a lot of time looking for a couple of good backgrounds. They were hard to find and I will be back there later this week. It was good to scout things out for the future. Here with the net up I was able to clean up some things for the shot put.

Finding The Moments

During a track meet things are happening all over the place. You are going to miss some stuff over the course of things. That just makes it that much cooler when you stumble onto a moment.

Medal Time!

This was a two day track meet. On the first day my athletes were not in the medals too much. On day two that changed and I was able to make some fun photos in the podium area. Later this week I will be in the medal area for all of the teams so no matter what I will be getting some fun medal photos.

Having Some Fun

Thanks to my friend Mark Elsner I found out about this gold streak filter. It is a fun way to introduce something into your photos. For the final Purdue womens game of the year I spent a lot of the pregame messing around with it. This is my favorite of those photos. At the end of the basketball season you are looking for anything different.

Running Up Top

For what I do now wide shots are not always the best. In fact the people that I work for do not value them. I realized though that I didn’t have many wide photos of Mackey this year so I quickly ran up during a time out to make one. I hoped that some action would happen fairly quickly, and I got lucky here.

Senior Day

This is the first time in a while when senior day also meant the last college game for the players on the court. Purdue needed some help to get into the Big Ten Tournament, and as I was making the senior day photos I saw that the help I was hoping for didn’t happen. That made things seem a bit more final when the players were giving their speeches.

Another Photo From Up Top

During the men’s game on Tuesday I went up top for the intros and the anthem. Like I said above I didn’t get up top to make many wide photos this year. It is just not needed for what I do now. I like to have them because Purdue just keeps adding banners to you have to keep updating your wide photos. I like how this one turned out. This was my last game in Mackey this year so I wanted something to remember it by. This will do.

Waiting For One Photo

When I saw the ribbon board during the senior day ceremonies I knew that I had one photo to make. I waited around to see if Caleb would talk in front of his jersey. When he did not I moved over to make this photo showing the ribbon board. This could have been much better if Caleb was closer to me, but I still like the idea of it.

Another Harper

A couple of years ago on this blog I talked about photographing the older Harper brother when he was at Rutgers. In the 90’s living near Chicago nothing was better than those Bulls teams. Ron Harper was a huge part of those teams. It was really cool to get a chance to photograph both of his sons.

Pure Joy

Purdue was on a roll this game hitting more threes than I have seen them hit in a while. They were having a blast, but in the first half all of that emotion was going the other way. Here I lucked out in the second half that some of it came my way. I was a little luckier that some of the three point banners are in the background. I really like this photo.

Photographing The Big Ten Tournament

Wednesday I was lucky enough to get a  day in at the Big Ten Tournament for the Big Ten. It was five years to the day since the last sporting event that I photographed in this building. I was part of the Purdue team then. This year I got to photograph all of the teams which was really fun. I need to find a way to do this more.

One Anthem Photo

When the anthem started I was looking for an angle to capture it. Here with the flag on the jumbotron I knew that I could have a little fun. The main flag was behind me so the team would be looking over me. It was a good way to get things kicked off for the day.

Pulling Out Wide

For photos like this one I wanted to show off some of the features of the stadium and the signage. I put my camera on the ground and let the arena do the rest. I really like the new jumbotron overhead with a live view on it. I think that it adds to this photo.

The Tip Off

For the second game of the day my job started up top on the concourse. I popped out to make this photo as the game started. I made something similar in this building in 2016 during the women’s national title game. With the new logo on the court it made sense to try it again.

The Bench

Part of the fun during the day was documenting the bench closest to me. I was lucky and I had three very fun benches to make photos of. Nebraska had a ton of different three point celebrations, and some hot shooting by the team let me see most of them.

Using The Lights

During pregame there are lights that are constantly moving. During the intros I was always hoping that one would shine right at me when the player was doing something cool. During my last game of the night I made this photo and I liked how it all worked out.

The Little Things

Game action is fun to cover, but moments like this are even more fun. It was a fleeting moment where they kind of bounced off each other laughing, but it made for a good photo. These are the kinds of photos that I will love way more as time goes on.

Five Games In Four Days

More than likely my basketball season ended in Indy. Unless I get really lucky on the second weekend of the tournament I will be moving on to more outdoor sports soon. Going out with five games in four days was a kind of neat way to do just that. I used to wish for the end of basketball season back in the day. I have found ways to really make it fun though, and now I am always sad when it is over for me.

That was a fun week plus of sports photography. This coming week could be really fun too. I have a chance to photograph baseball and softball to start things off. Thursday through Saturday I have the DII Track and Field Championships. Due to the nature of that event I don’t know what I will cover in next Saturdays post. Maybe some of the Thursday action will make it in, but with the quick turnarounds I don’t know how much wiring I will be able to do.