The Week That Was In Sports

We are now almost completely in winter sports season now. I should say that I am. The only fall sport that I have left to cover is a single football game the day after Thanksgiving. This week wrestling came back into play. It is probably the only wrestling match that I will cover for a while, but it was still fun to photograph it again.

Wrestling In Lambert

When I heard that Purdue was going to be wrestling in Lambert Fieldhouse I put it on my schedule. I knew that I would not get paid to photograph it, but I wanted to spend some time photographing it. Before Mackey Arena was built this is where Purdue played basketball. I have photographed track in this building many times, but this was the first time for a sport like wrestling. I went to the arena with this photo in mind. I wanted to have some fun with those historic windows.

A Wrestling Photo

When I made this photo I thought that it might be the most wrestling wrestling photo that I have made yet. You kind of have a little bit of everything here. You have the wrestling gear, the look, and the blood. I really like this photo.

A New Intro

The new elements to the intros for Purdue make everything else new again. I have decided to try and find as many angles to photograph this as possible. I like this angle, but I may come back to it when I can have a clear view of both of the new pillars.

Dunk City

I normally don’t get many dunk photos. You have to have everything work out to make a nice dunk photo. On Sunday I made three of them that I liked. I should have bought a lottery ticket on the way home. For some reason in Mackey I feel lucky to get a face and a dunk. Three in one game was a pretty cool thing.

#500

Sunday was win #500 for Matt Painter. As I was photographing him during his press conference it kind of dawned on me how far I have come. I bought season tickets to watch basketball in 2005 just to get better football seats. I had never been a Purdue basketball fan. I liked the coach down south much more than the Purdue coach. In 2005 though Purdue had a new coach. I went to a few games, and quickly realized that I liked this brand of basketball. Over the years I have gotten to see many memorable games in Mackey Arena. I have seen quite a few of those 500 wins. I hope that I get to see many more over the next few years. I just have a much better seat now than I did in 2005.

The IU Health Hoops Tournament

It is that time of the year again for the IU Health basketball tournaments. This is the old Journal and Courier tournament. It has come a long way from being sponsored by the paper with nobody from the paper anywhere near the opening round games at Harrison. It is still a fun tournament to photograph. You get some early season tournament emotion. It is also a great chance to get to see a ton of local teams all at once at the beginning of the year. On Tuesday night I was able to see four local teams in action. It was a fun time in a gym that I have now photographed a ton of games.

West Side Basketball

In the past I covered a ton of West Side basketball. Lately though they have their own photographer so I haven’t been to as many games. It was fun to see this team though. They are pretty young, and have lots of room for growth this season. The fight that they showed late in the game to get things close was really fun to see.

Going Wide

I went to these games to play with a new toy. It is a floor plate that I bought from fellow photographer to use for my remotes. If you know me then you know that I usually do not use a floor plate. This year though I want to have my remote away from me at times so I good floor plate was something that I was looking for. I wanted to try it out, and see how I could use it best. I kept it next to me for most of the game, but later in the week I want to try some more remote stuff with it. For most floor plates you need a ball head which makes it bulky and harder to move around. This one is very compact, and easy to pack into my camera bag. If you are interested in it you can check it out here.

Harrison Basketball

For the last few years I have gotten to more Harrison girls basketball games than any other high school. May Gymnasium feels more like home than any other local gym. For the last couple of years I haven’t been there as much as I would have liked to have been. This year I want to get to more games in May than I have in the past couple of years.

Playing Basketball Like A Linebacker

The first time that I saw Harrison senior Becca Knight play basketball I had the thought that she played it like a linebacker. That spring I saw that she was a catcher and it all kind of made sense. She would have been a freshman or sophomore at the time so she has refined her game a little bit. Here though she delivers a nice blow on the way to the basketball. That tough play is very fun to photograph and watch. I had two modes that I played basketball in. This is how I played most of the time way back when. I will have to check out a couple more games this year just to see more of this.

Having Some Fun

When I saw the new logos for Harrison at the ends of the courts I knew that I would have some fun with them. Back in the day I would have used them to make a multi exposure. Sony still has not figured out how to do that in camera though so I have to do it in post. It was way more fun and felt more creative doing it in camera. I will have to keep working on this as the season goes on.

Catching The End Of A West Side Game

I got to May Gymnasium with about three minutes left in the West Side game against Twin Lakes. It looks like it was a really good game for West Side. The bracket that I had to go off of for game times did not have this game on it. I was glad that I was able to photograph a few minutes of it though.

Emotion!

My best emotion photo of the night came from that West Side game. A late three sent the bench into celebration. It was worth getting there a little bit early just for this photo.

The Ghost Filter

During warm ups I had the idea to use my ghost filter to some different photos. It is really hard to focus quickly through that much glass, but when it hit it was pretty cool. It was also a good reason to break out my 135mm lens for a few photos.

Trying Something New With The Remote

I put the star filter on the remote just for something a little different.Overall I like what it did with the lights closer to the camera. The only problem is that to get those lights I had to be at 16mm which made everything else in the frame pretty small. This is definitely something to play around with in the future.

Looking For Something Different

This was the second game in a week that I covered for this team. At some point in the second half I started to feel like I was just doing the same thing over and over. I am not sure as of writing this if I will be back tonight for their game, but if I do I may ditch my camping chair and roam a little more. I have the freedom to move much more than I do at Purdue here, and I should take advantage of that.

A Hard Fought Game

The last two photos kind of show how physical of a game this was. The finger to the face was not even thought of as a foul, and the elbow that caused the nosebleed was not seen by the officials. They really liked to call the little fouls, but for some reason let the clobbering go uncalled under both baskets. I don’t think that the calls favored either team at all. At one point in the third quarter though it started to feel like I was photographing a football game.