The Week That Was In Sports

This week could have been a couple of things. I probably should have photographed three basketball games. I turned down a little money last night though to photograph the West Side football game. I wanted to see at least one more game that the football team played. They have been fun to watch this year. The season didn’t start out how they wanted it too, but they kept fighting and put themselves in position to win a trophy.

Game One For Purdue Women’s Basketball

Monday night I was in Mackey to photograph the first real game of the year for the Purdue women’s team. This team is basically an entirely new team that you are seeing on the court. So far only two players that saw the court last year for Purdue have been on the court. The rest of the team is filled with new faces that are still learning to play with each other. That showed a little bit in game one of the season. The Boilers trailed for much of this game, but left with a win. I think that this season will be an interesting one for Purdue. If this team can learn to play together quickly it could be good. They have some time early here to dial it in before the Big Ten schedule hits them.

Focusing On The Boards

Last year I made a point to focus on rebounding photos more. This year I have tried to keep that focus going. So far it has allowed me to make a couple of rebounding photos that I really like. It is still early in the season so I am learning the players. I haven’t seen a lot of emotion from a lot of the Purdue squad so staying on the shooter is not always going to happen. A good rebounding photo can be pretty fun though.

Another Women’s Game

Purdue played another game on Thursday night. They came out firing and built a big lead. Suddenly though this young team found themselves down again. They battled back to win fairly easily to go 2-0 on the season. A lot of this game felt familiar to game one. They are just so new to each other that turnovers are bound to happen. I liked the fight to get back into a double digit lead though. There are plenty of things to be excited about for this team.

Breaking Out The 300

I brought my 300mm lens to the court to make a few downcourt photos on Thursday night. As the season goes on I may use this lens more. I will end up staying on one end of the court so I will use the 300 to get me to the other end. The only problem that I have with this way of making photos is that the background always seems messy. When you get in super tight like the photo above though who cares about the background.

Waiting For The Right Moment

I was prepped for this photo for a while. In the first half I saw that this player was really into the game and very emotive. The celebration photos on the bench had a lot of distractions in them. I was hoping for a good jube photo in the 2nd half. I went to the EMU end of the court to get that photo. She drove to the basket and dished out a pass to the wing for a made three. As soon as the ball left the players hands I moved back to the player that passed the ball hoping for something good. I ended up with one of my favorite photos on the night. Knowing your emotional players helps you get to them quick when something good happens.

A Lot Of Fight

As I said at the top of this post the West Side football team showed me a lot this season. They never quit this year. Last night was a good example. They were down two scores with not that much time on the clock and they kept fighting. They gave themselves a chance to win the game. This was most likely my last Friday night lights of the year. It is crazy how fast the season goes by. I really wanted to see them holding up the sectional trophy last night. If ever a team deserved to do so it was this one. I have been photographing these teams since 2011. Over the course of those years I have seen a ton of good players go through the West Lafayette program. There were a lot of players that I loved to photograph on this current team. Selfishly I really wanted to see things go their way last night.