The Week That Was In Sports

This week started off with a bang. Two top ten teams matching up in Mackey. As will be the case for many weeks this time of the year the rest of the week was filled with more basketball. A high school game followed by a Purdue men’s and women’s game closed out the week.

Having Some Fun Pregame

This year part of the fun of pregame is making some different images. To get a seat in the media room you have to get to the stadium a couple of hours early. I have too much nervous energy before games to just sit in there. Grabbing a filter and seeing what it can do is a fun way to kill some time and make something interesting. Here I was using the Prism Lens FX Halo filter to kind of bend the light a little. This will be fun to play with as time goes on.

Blind Sided

With his second assist of the game on Saturday Braden Smith passed Sean Tuohy of Ole Miss for 40th place all time in school history. That is a great thing to be 40th all time with so much time left to play this year. It is even cooler because Sean was the father in the movie The Blind Side. A few years ago I read the book, saw the movie, and saw Michael Oher play in a playoff game all within a week of each other. It was a great story that has since become a little muddled. For a week though I thought it was a very cool thing. At this point nearly every assist that he makes will move him up the all time leaderboard. It really is a fun thing to get to see in person. Of course I had the idea for this heading before the game, but after the game blind sided had a couple of meanings.

A Fun Honor

I don’t hear a lot about what I turn in to Zuma Press. It wasn’t until I was putting a package together for a client that I realized that I was getting featured on their site. Thanks to a friend I saw that the photo above was the photo of the day on their site. With all that is going on in the world as well as the conference championship games that were happening it was cool to get some publicity.

A Weird Game

I have been going to Purdue basketball games for twenty years now. It is rare that a team comes into Mackey and plays tougher than Purdue. It is hard to say, but that happened on Saturday. If there was a loose ball it seemed like Iowa State got to it. The good news is that this game doesn’t impact the Big Ten schedule. It was a great game at the half that just really got away in the second half. I don’t know how much more I can say about it. Two great teams battled, and for the one day at least one of the teams was much better. It is a long season though. Maybe Purdue will get a second chance at Iowa State in March.

A High Flying Act

At halftime of the Purdue/Iowa State game the Pacers had a crew come up to put on a dunk show. It was really cool to see just how high these guys can get. I know that they have help getting that high, but to land it after dunking cannot be easy.

The Pregame Light Show

I have a couple of ideas for the Harrison pregame light show. This was my first idea. I am still not sure how well it worked. I was hoping the halo filter would bend that light a little more. I may have to change things up a little bit for that to happen though. I will give it one more try before going on to another idea for the light show. The good news about a long season is that you have time to try things out.

Santa!

Santa was at the game between Harrison and Jeff making this a Christmas post as well as a week in sports post. It is always cool to see Santa, and I hope that he has that lens that I want in his bag.

A Hard Fought Game

This was a hard fought game between Harrison and Jeff. It seemed like every shot on each end was contested. I was not making many clean photos because of that. A contested shot also makes for a good photo though.

Bounceback!

After the loss on Saturday I was interested to see how Purdue would respond. They played okay in the first half, but then put the pedal down and really took it to Minnesota in the second half of the game. It was kind of the opposite of what happened last Saturday. Sometimes you just need those games to get you going. Purdue came out focused and had a pretty good win in the Big Ten home opener.

Double Your Pleasure

This seems to be a theme every week, but I like to show what the floor remote adds to my gallery. As you can see above the tight image of Braden Smith making his layup is okay. It is kind of a stock basketball action photo. The wide view from my remote though gives a little more context. I don’t need many of these from a game, but having a couple of them helps break up the gallery and let me tell more of the story from the game. The floor remote adds a cool new angle to what I am doing. The week before one of my floor remote images actually was the photo of the day for Zuma Press.

Peak Action

This year I have really tried to get as many defensive photos as I could while Purdue was playing lesser opponents. Now that we are to the Big Ten season the focus in the second half changes. I want to get some of those athletes as well. Here I was able to kind of do both. This week I felt off making my basketball images. I don’t know why, but for some reason I felt a little slow. Here though I lucked into a good action photo of a block.

Details

Every game I want to make some kind of a detail photo. It is a fun thing to focus on to help break up my gallery. Here the detail is the tattoo, but also the trim on the Minnesota jerseys. I didn’t realize that the trim had so much detail on it until i made this photo. A tattoo saying that the world is yours is pretty cool too.

Changing Things Up

Thursday morning things were a little different for me. For this season I have been shooting for the wire. On Thursday I was back to photographing for a team. This is the position that I would always much rather be working from. I always feel like you are making photos when photographing for a team. With the wire you always feel like you are taking photos. Rules are different for the wire people so you have to just take what you can get. I really miss working with teams, and it always gets me thinking about ways to get back into that.

Having Some Fun Pregame

I had my halo filter out during pregame to play around a little. It really works well in certain situations. When I am working for the wire I have trouble getting close enough to make it work like I want it to. When I am photographing for the opponent I can get closer to make the images that I have in my head.

The Anthem Photo

I love this photo made during the anthem. The black floor in the lane at Purdue makes the exposure wonky during layups in games, but here it gives me a nice surface for a reflection. If you follow this blog then you know that I love reflection photos and photos of the flag. Here things come together.