The Week That Was In Sports

This was a fun week in sports. It was very volleyball heavy. By the time that this goes live I will be at the Purdue men’s game starting another week. This past week though saw the end of the regular season for Purdue volleyball. I then photographed the selection show again. I used to go and photograph this every year. It is really fun seeing the team find out their fate. On Wednesday I photographed the Purdue women’s basketball game for a change of pace. Thursday and Friday I was in Holloway Gymnasium photographing the NCAA volleyball tournament. It is more than likely my last week of volleyball for the year so having four games this week lets me go out with a bang. This was an amazing week, and it will be hard to top. Starting it off with a top ten basketball battle is a pretty good start though.

Another Mackey Game For Purdue Volleyball

These Mackey games are a love/hate thing for me. I love the fact that more fans can experience Purdue volleyball. The team gets to play in front of a bigger crowd as well. For a photographer though it can be frustrating. There are no good places to make photos of the players at court level unless you work for one of the teams. On a positive note you have a much higher view to photograph from. You can make photos that you can’t make anywhere else on campus. If I think about my game coverage for just the one game it can be frustrating. If I think about the ways that I can make new photos it is pretty cool. When a door is closed you have to just find new photos and keep going.

A Quick Match

Purdue beat Indiana fairly easily. Indiana is having a really good year and hosting the NCAA Tournament so that made me feel pretty good about the Purdue win. They have a really good team this year, and as I write this they are preparing for the NCAA Tournament at home. By the time this goes live they will have played their two games already. Hopefully they keep this train rolling to Kansas City.

Going Up Top

Part of the fun of a volleyball match in Mackey is the fact that I can get higher than I normally can in Holloway. I can make the athletes look even more athletic by gaining that extra height. You can get more of the athlete above the net.

Going Wide

For the last couple of points I went super wide to show off the setting of the match. I really had not gone wide from courtside the entire match so I really waited until the last minute to get my sense of place photos. They were the important points of the day though and the celebration made them a little better.

Familiar Faces

Alumni day is always fun. At this point I have been photographing Purdue volleyball for a while now. It is always nice to see some familiar faces a few years down the road. At some level I still feel like I have just started this journey. Seeing players come back always reminds me that I have been doing this for a while now.

The NCAA Tournament Selection Show

I have been to a few of these selection shows for Purdue volleyball now. For this one I wanted something a little different. I saw this view over the players and I went up to check it out during a commercial break. Of course Purdue was announced right out of the break so my reaction photo ended up being from this spot. I like the different view though.

A Basketball Break

In between the volleyball this week was a basketball game for the Purdue women’s team. They were coming off a tough road loss, and needed a confidence building win before starting Big Ten play. They got just that against Evansville. They had a comfortable win and some much needed confidence building for a few players. It will be interesting to see how this team does in Big Ten play this year.

A Fun Local Moment

Freshman Carley Barrett walked on to the Purdue women’s team just before the start of the season this year. With just over a minute left in the game she checked in to get some playing time. She immediately stole the basketball and made a layup to get into the box score. It was great seeing a local kid doing good things.

The NCAA Volleyball Tournament

This is the sixth time that I have been lucky enough to photograph the NCAA volleyball tournament. The first year I had to drive to the Missouri to see the tournament. The last five I have been lucky enough that the tournament has been right here at Purdue. It never gets old getting to do something so cool. I extends my volleyball season, and I get to photograph some really emotional moments.

Finding The Emotion

It is not hard to find emotion during a post season tournament. For some reason though Arkansas State was playing with much more emotion than Baylor was. For that reason I stuck with them longer. I was kind of secretly hoping that they would win the fifth set so that I could photograph them again. Maybe Baylor will have more emotion against Purdue.

Lining Up The Photo

When I went up top I tried to line up a photo like this one. I knew that an outside hit would line up close to the NCAA logo behind the players. I like having things in my tournament photos to tell the story. You have the patch on the jersey showing that it is tourney time. The logo in the background helps tell that story as well. If I could have had the tourney logo on the volleyball it would have been really cool.

More With The Logo

Standing where I did helped me line this photo up as well. I like how this worked out, but I wish that I could have gotten a little bit higher. That would have let me get the net out of the way, and it also would have brought the player more into the sign and let me get rid of the people in the background.

Going Wide

I like this photo for a scene setting purpose. I would never have submitted it to the wire, but for me it helps me tell the story of the day. Lucky for me Arkansas State scored a point almost right away giving me a good celebration.

Preparing For Later

I made a photo similar to this one earlier in the day for one of the early teams. I liked it, but I knew that it would be better with a Boiler in it. I filed that idea away for the game at night. Here things worked out for a photo that I really liked and that I have not made in Holloway before. After doing this for a few years now that it hard to do.

An Alex Crop

For the last couple of years I had fun working with Alex Martin who was the staff photographer for the local paper. Early on his crops were kind of perplexing to me. I was always a 2×3 kind of a guy. Maybe you could crop at 3×2 just to be different. Over the last couple of years I have found some fun in cropping to make the photo a little better. When I made this photo I knew that it would get an Alex crop to it.

On To Pittsburgh!

As I write this more than likely Purdue will be headed to Pittsburgh next weekend. If the top two seeds in their part of the bracket lose than they would play at home again. That is unlikely, but something that I keep an eye on every year. At this point it seems like the Boilers should have the travel plans to Pittsburgh down pretty good. They looked good in their games this weekend so hopefully they can play with that fire next weekend.

Having Some Fun

After using a friends halo filter last week I used the black Friday discounts to get my own. I don’t know how much I would use such a thing, but it is fun to play around with. I like the idea of having it with me just in case. Here when Pete came up to me I something cool to practice on. As this goes live I should be in Mackey playing around with the thing during warm ups.

Going Really Wide

Purdue took care of business so fast on Thursday that I never had chance for my wide photos. The fourth set last night was a great time to make some really wide photos to show a sense of place. I really thought that Purdue was going win in three sets so I had the action that I wanted already. Set four was a time to play around a little and get some stuff that I hadn’t gotten in the two days of the tournament. I like these wide photos because there is still good action in them. I had the time so I waited a bit for a good celebration to fill in the court space.

Going Out On A High Note

If this was my last volleyball of the year it was a good week to go out on. It started with the win against IU in Mackey, and it ended with three NCAA Tournament games in Holloway. Volleyball is a really fast sport, and I felt really rusty for the Mackey game on Saturday. Of course I started to feel much better last night when it will be the last volleyball that I photograph for a while.

More Photos From The Week

Below are a few bonus photos from this past week. Did you make it all the way through last week? If so I hope that your extra helping of leftovers was as good as mine was.