Amazing comeback…
The #2 ranked Virginia women’s lacrosse team was down 11-5 with about 15 minutes remaining in the game… it looked like Penn State was going to walk out of Charlottesville with the upset. The UVA ladies battled back, scoring several goals in the final minutes… it was 11-10 with 15 seconds left when the Hoos scored to tie it up and force overtime. Then first-year Julie Gardner (4) scored the go ahead goal in the second overtime period to wrap up the 12-11 win. The cool thing was that there were already several thousand folks in the stadium because the men’s team was due up next to face Cornell. The above shot was the celebration, taken after the tying goal.
Men’s Basketball… having some fun
Today’s UVA v UMD basketball game was the last of the season for me at the John Paul Jones Arena… there’s still the ACC tournament in Atlanta later this week, but as far as home games in the place where I probably spend as much time between November to March as I do my own home, this was it. Maryland came into the game at 7-8 in the league, very much needing a W to keep their chances of a NCAA tournament bid alive. Virginia’s had a pretty rough year with only 3 conference wins prior to today’s 68-63 victory over the Terps.
This shot is of Calvin Baker, who was pretty happy once UVA took the lead over UMD in the second half. After trailing by 13 in the first half, the Wahoos clawed back within one at halftime and built a sizeable lead in the second half… only to have Maryland tie it at 61. Then, on senior day, Mamadi Diane swished a three pointer to seal the victory. That and he had 23 points — not bad for a guy who spent most of the season on the bench.
I was surprised at the number of Maryland fans that invaded the UVA-spring-break-absent-student-section… they were loud and impressive for a road crew. Lots of red clashing with orange in some parts of the stands.
Lots of fun all around….
Women’s Lacrosse… 66 degrees = spring time
This is a shot of Virginia first-year Julie Gardner scoring a goal against Maryland last night. UVA fell 17-11 to the Terps, but it didn’t matter because for me it was the first warm night of the spring sports season — a most excellent occasion that I look forward to each year. In fact, this entire weekend is going to be in the mid 70s including tomorrow’s women’s and men’s lacrosse doubleheaders. It will be nice to get some sun and enjoy an early spring, especially considering that there were several inches of snow on the ground just a few days ago.
Jeff Teague gets the job done for Wake Forest
#13 ranked Wake Forest came to town yesterday — Virginia, who had knocked off previously ranked #12 Clemson a few weeks earlier, hung around for most of the game, but Wake pulled away in the final minutes to seal the ACC road win. This shot was my best remote shot from the game… I’m pretty happy with it — I had the same frame from all my remotes, but this was by far the best angle. Only one more home game this season…
Rejected
Last night Miami came to Charlottesville for a late season ACC game. This shot is of Tunji Soroye blocking Miami’s James Dews as he was headed towards the hoop – Dews literally didn’t see what was coming and this was a pretty monster block. Tunji followed it minutes later with yet another block — this time the head on version, blocking Jimmy Graham (see below):
Pretty standard game for me — one backboard remote, one remote on the padding, floor remote, crowd remote, and one catwalk remote. All worked pretty well, and I got some okay stuff. Miami went on a late 7-0 run to close out the game and win 62-55 — UVA seemed pretty dejected by the loss, especially Jeff Jones who had a stellar game with 16 points. 2 more home games for the season, and then it’s down to Atlanta in March for the ACC Tournament — as long as Virginia keeps winning, I get to keep shooting — the last two years have been of the one and done variety… hoping that isn’t the case this year.
Night Lacrosse in February… brrrr
I usually avoid wearing my winter coat to any sporting event — mainly because it makes switching between camera bodies cumbersome if not down right impossible. This is particularly true for lacrosse which is extremely fast paced. By the end of tonight’s NCAA Lacrosse game between #2 Virginia and Mount Saint Mary’s, the temperature dropped to a balmy 26 degrees — and dudes on both teams were running around in shorts. Even though UVA is ranked #2 in the nation, I quickly began to realize why I was the only (still) photographer there — it was a night game in middle of the week and it was downright cold. Virginia seems to always play Mt. St. Mary’s this time of year… in 2007, there was a night game against MSM and it was actually quite nice — “71 degrees, somewhat overcast, and breezy“… heck, 10 days earlier the official weather for the game was listed as “50 degrees, Sunny, Glorious“… yeah, umm, not tonight.
I actually had a great time covering this game — Virginia dominated with 60+ shots and won the game 10-2. Mt. Saint Mary’s goalie deserves a lot a praise — even though he let in 10 goals, he stopped a bunch of others and was under constant pressure. Virginia dominated the entire game and it looked as if they were headed towards a shutout, but in the 4th quarter MSM scored on a 2-man advantage… they then scored again at even strength a few minutes later.
This shot (above) is of Danny Glading (9) running past Ryan Shewell (14)… I’m particularly pleased with how my post-production is ending up — thanks to fellow photog Andrew Shurtleff and a lot of tweaking, the color is getting very close (I was having a bunch of issues with colors fading — particularly oranges and reds — in the conversion from CR2/RAW to JPEG) and with the help of a few tricks (aka Noise Ninja and a 1DM3) I’m able to shoot at much higher ISOs that I would have been able to in the past. Below is an example from the March 13, 2007 UVA/MSM game:
Hopefully, I’ve improved in the last two years 
UVA WBB Senior Day vs Boston College
This shot is of Carolyn Swords from Boston College — she dominated the interior with a game-high 31 points, but that wasn’t enough for BC as they fell 90-70 to Virginia on senior day. This was taken with a remote on the backboard — I usually shoot these remotes in a horizontal position and crop vertically, but this particular remote was vertical and then cropped horizontally… just mixing things up. This was pretty much one of two usable images from my 4 remotes that I placed for this game. Kind of a bummer, but that’s the way it goes — either there’s a ton of stuff or there isn’t. Also have noticed much more consistent firing of the strobes now that the flash tubes have been replaced – fewer misfires and it seems the remotes are synced much better and are hitting the light when they’re supposed to.
The past couple of games I’ve been using the 15mm fisheye on a 20D as a floor remote (the cropping of the 1.6x sensor takes out a lot of the distortion) and when working produces some sweet images. This frees up my Mark IIN to use either with the 70-200mm in the stands or with the 24-70mm on the back of the goal padding (I’d just really rather put a 20D on the court than a IIN, plus the 15mm fisheye is much more distorted at 1.3x vs 1.6x). Only problem is that the 20D only sometimes works with lagging with the fisheye — sometimes it’s either half on half off, or all the way off, or like 2 games ago, always working. Strange things possess these cameras sometimes.
It was senior day for the women’s team at JPJ, and it looks like there won’t be home post season action (a la NIT) for the ladies as the #21 ranked team is headed to the NCAA tournament after the ACC tournament. That leaves three regular season ACC games for the men’s team before wrapping up the 08-09 hoops season at the arena.
Pink Unis – for a good cause
The UVA women’s basketball team came out on the court against Miami on Thursday wearing all pink uniforms… everything, including their shoes was pink. This was all part of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s Pink Zone campaign for breast cancer awareness. Last year they just wore the shoes and shoelaces, but this year was pretty cool with the entire pink unis.
The game was pretty awesome as well — first half was really ugly with UVA at point hitting only 2 of 22 from the field (9%). Fouls by Miami kept the ‘Hoos in it and they made a nice run down the stretch — Lyndra Littles hit a circus shot in the final seconds of the game to force overtime. Then, UVA dominated the OT session to pull out the home win.
All is well in Hooville…
…at least for right now. It’s been a long season for the Wahoo faithful with respect to men’s basketball. The last two games, however, have erased some of the bitter feelings with fans, first with a win over #12 Clemson then defeating in-state rival Virginia Tech 75-61.
Photographically, there was nothing special about this game compared to others other than it was a packed baseline and I had some issues with a couple remotes. Apparently, a fellow photog thought it was a good idea to move my floor remote out of position and turn it off for me, without saying anything. Not cool. I still managed to get a nice couple of frames from that remote, once I discovered it was out of place and reoriented it during a timeout.
The shot above is of the student section at the end of the game — they’re singing the Good Ol’ Song. Nothing special, other than having to lean over two rows of floor seats to get the shot… I like the score/graphics in the back drop.
Some new changes for the blog today as well — I’ve integrated my website look/feel and have abandoned the previous photoblog/monotone theme… it was too restrictive and would only allow one image per post and wouldn’t allow cool things like the embedded PhotoShelter slideshow like I’m including below. PhotoShelter has also added some sweet new upgrades to their Personal Archive product (which is the back end that powers my entire website archive of 31,000+ images). Favorites include 100 thumbnails per page (instead of the previous 25), user customizable displays (if you really liked 25 thumbs instead of 100, you can set your own personal preferences via the Display Options link), and mouseover previews of all thumbnail images. Rock on!
Watching the party from above… #12 Clemson at Virginia
UVA’s men’s basketball team had a pretty rough stretch before the #12 ranked Clemson Tigers came to town — losing eight games in a row. Clemson entered the game as heavy favorites over the Wahoos — I remember last year’s 82-51 blowout and was hoping that the game would at least be close. Much to my surprise Virginia took a solid first half lead into the locker room. In the second half, Clemson went on a 14-0 run to retake the lead and it looked like the game was over. UVA didn’t give up, and pulled back and the last 10 minutes of the game was about as exciting as it gets with back and forth lead changes all the way to the wire. UVA freshman Sylven Landesberg hit this floater in the lane with 13.4 seconds to go to even the score at 74-74… overtime.
Since Clemson was a highly ranked opponent, there was a chance, if UVA won that the students would rush the court. I was hoping that they would, as this usually makes for pretty sweet photos, so I headed up to the catwalk in hopes of a repeat from the 2007 Duke at UVA game where an amazing Sean Singletary one-handed fade away won the game for Virginia. The appropriate magic was in place, as Sean Singletary, now with the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats, was on hand as he became only the 7th player in UVA men’s basketball history to have his number (44) retired. While the celebration was somewhat muted by security folks and ushers doing their job, a few students did manage to make in the court after Virginia finished off the Tigers 85-81 in OT. This image worked for me because it had the scoreboard, the stats of the game, center court, the UVA V-sabres flag, happy players/students, and Cav Man… lots of elements that just came together at once.
On the advice from fellow photog Andrew Shurtleff I swapped out the bulbs in my strobes as they were becoming extremely dull. What a difference this made — 2 stops improvement and *all* of my remotes, etc worked flawlessly. It was a good game to shoot… finally.
O! Say can you see?
Here’s another remote shot taken from the United States v. Mexico Men’s Soccer game in Columbus, OH on February 11, 2009. This image was taken with a Canon 40D and a 15mm fisheye at f/2.8. Like my shot of a similar image from a different camera/angle this remote was set to go off every 30 seconds through the entire game — the result was several crowd shots that could be combined to form a time-lapse video… it also made a couple of nice single stills, especially when Sam’s Army and the American Outlaws fan groups pulled out their very large American Flags (usually in celebration of a goal, or a Mexican red card).
Don’t Tread on Me… USA v Mexico Men’s Soccer
I headed to Columbus, Ohio on Tuesday afternoon to shoot a pretty big soccer game on Wednesday night. My major focus for the assignment was to really cover the game action on the field and with remote cameras while fellow photog Eric Kelley shot crazed fans, pre-game festivities, etc. We mixed it up a little bit and got a batch of images that I’m really pleased with. This shot is instantly one of my all-time favorite remote camera shots — and it took a lot of work and a good amount of luck to make happen. This is the first goal of the game, where Michael Bradley (4) put away a pin-ball series of headers/volleys inside the 6-yard line to put the U.S. up 1-0… America ended up defeating Mexico 2-0, with the second goal also coming from Bradley in the 92nd minute.
Getting this image required setting up a remote camera (actually did three) up in the catwalk on the north end of Columbus Crew Stadium… getting gear up a narrow ladder onto the structure was a challenge itself. Another issue was the fact that major storms were approaching with heavy rain, heavy winds (gusts in excess of 60mph). So, the remotes had to be secure enough not to move in really strong winds. I used my standard magic arm/super clamp set up with safety cables… this image was shot with a Canon 20D with a 50mm lens at f/2.8.
I’m really glad that I got up there early to set everything up because by the time for others to place remotes behind the goal came about, US Soccer decided because of the weather/field conditions to not allow goal remotes… so these were the only remote shots I was going to be able to get.
Gallery of photos from the game…
My images from the game on NikeSoccer.com
Virginia head coach Dave Leitao
This image summed up UVA’s day against Florida State. UVA was held to 3 of 23 shooting in the first half — with only 5 points over the first 13:45 of the first half. Not good. In this image, Leitao was disputing an official’s call. It didn’t really matter as UVA fell to FSU 73-62. Virginia had some interesting runs in the second half which pretty much kept it even for the half, but the team had trouble pulling back a 14 point half time deficit. This shot was taken from the opposite end of the court at 200mm. Typical of a Coach Leitao shot are the open mouth and displaced necktie. 
Jump Around…
Tonight’s game was a good one… #16 UVA hosted #22 FSU in NCAA women’s basketball. FSU came into the game undefeated in ACC. This image is of the UVA bench celebrating as their team cut a double digit second half FSU lead down to 1 point. It was fun to see the comeback and the crowd get into it… despite the late second half surge, Virginia fell 80-75 to the Seminoles. The game was unusually physical with plenty of fouls – most of which came from FSU… including this Alysha Harvin clothesline of Britnee Milner. The loss was the first home loss of the season for the Wahoos…
Tyler Hansbrough: Making it look easy
UNC’s Tyler Hansbrough did a number on UVA last night. Last year’s National Player of the Year lit Virginia up for 28 points. He also has a knack for getting to fouled… here’s a good example. Like the Xavier shot I wrote about earlier, this shot was from an overhead remote that was set to fire the motor drive (non-strobed) whenever I triggered my hand held camera (Canon 1D Mark III which doesn’t lag very well no matter what I do). This was one of six total camera angles that I shot last night (including hand held).
Sam’s Club
So, tonight was the #5 UNC v UVA men’s basketball game. Probably the biggest game of the season for UVA’s John Paul Jones Arena… all the local media and photogs were there, plus a bunch of others from NC and around the country. Students showed up which was nice after shooting a dozen or so games over winter break with no students around. This shot is of a group of students who were wearing Sam’s Club vests in honor of Virginia point guard Sammy Zeglinski.
I was pretty happy with how things turned out. My remotes worked. My lights worked.
Assane Sene – Virginia’s intimidating 7 foot first-year
Assane Sene has played in most of Virginia’s games this season — eight games so far. I’m really impressed with this guy’s intensity on and off the court. When he and/or his team makes a big play, he shows it. When he misses a few free throws you can tell he’s ticked at himself. This shot is of him defending an inbound baseline pass against Brown University — an intimidating force for anyone to try and throw a basketball past. It’s great to see and be able to photograph someone with so much enthusiasm and emotion on the court.
Tip Off
ACC season has already started and is coming to JPJ soon. This shot was taken from the catwalk at tip off of last night’s women’s game vs St. Francis. The PocketWizards that trigger my strobe system were once again not working, and I went up just before the start of the game to find out why. Channels had been changed… again… Not cool. 
So, I was upstairs for tip off and took this shot. It was a fairly interesting game — not as exciting as the Georgia game, but St. Francis held on for a lot longer than they were expected to (35-35 at half), largely on some pretty nice 3 point shooting and lots of UVA turnovers. Virginia took control in the second half….
Smoking in black and white
Today has been a get things done in the office day… there are no basketball games so I’ve been cleaning, organizing, paying bills, keywording and pulling some images from my archive to send to a colleague. I came across this photo that I took back in June 2008 out in Mendocino, California. The photographer in the picture is Dan Heller (who writes a very insightful blog on the photography business). Dan led a workshop that I was attending that week and this was one of the many people we came across. She was our waitress a the local restaurant that we all stopped by for lunch and then we saw her walking on the street smoking a cigarette… more me the intriguing part of the moment wasn’t so much there was a young woman walking down the street smoking but rather that there were 4 or 5 photographers taking her photo.
Xavier’s Kenny Frease from Above
The #22 Xavier men’s NCAA basketball team came to town to play UVA. Remote camera and Pocketwizard Gremlins appear to have been tamed and things started clicking for the first time in several games. This image was taken from the catwalk above one of the baskets. Since I cannot consistently lag my Canon 1D Mark III (shutter lag values range all over the place), I occasionally use this body up from above with either my 180mm macro lens (as I did today) or 70-200mm and set to shoot on ambient light. I place it on the side of the court where I’m sitting shooting with my hand held — every time I fire my hand held camera this remote is listening on the same channel as the strobes are and it fires 4-6 frames each time. The result is that I often get several frames in an aerial view of a good play where I only can get one shot with my strobed hand held. It’s a nice combination.
