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.
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
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).
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….
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.
Women’s NCAA Hoops – Key Play
Enonge Stovall (40) grabbed an offensive rebound off a missed free throw with 22 seconds left and the score UVA 60 Georgia 58. She was also fouled on the play by Porsha Phillips (21) and made both of her free throw attempts to seal the game (final score 62-60) for the Cavaliers. This was one of the more exciting hoops games at JPJ in a while. Virginia was down by as much as 5 in the second half and rallied to retake the lead in the final minutes. This was the second SEC team that UVA has defeated this year (they beat Tennessee on the road earlier). Shooting wise, it was a good start to the New Year.
The only problem with tonight’s game was related to my Multimax that is triggered (on a delay) for my remote cameras. The other Multimax on my system (which my hand held camera uses to fire the strobes) was doing fine, no problems… nothing but crickets on the remote MM. Headed up to the catwalk and discovered a new error message on the MM saying something to the effect “Auto Shutdown Initiated. Power cycle to turn on.” It’s fascinating to me that if the MM powered down on it’s own, that it was nice enough to stay awake to display this message. Why couldn’t it just stay awake and receive transmissions like it’s supposed to? Thus, combined with all the other troubles experienced with this part of my system earlier in the year, that it definitely is related to the power source. So, I just put in batteries and it worked perfectly the rest of the game… it’s going to really suck to have to haul up to the catwalk before and after every game to take care of batteries and powering off the radio, but looks like that’s the current solution until I can get another power supply.
This was the only remote shot that really worked out tonight – I’m still struggling to find a decent angle to position my backboard remotes for the women’s games. Generally a more vertical angle (i.e. straight down) seems to work better, whereas for the men, roughly 45 degrees seems to work. Different camera positions (high, low, wide, etc) with respect to the glass also change things. As ACC season is starting up soon, I’m getting close to locking down exactly the way I want it. The men play #22 Xavier (who broke my 70-200mm lens hood with an errant shot in their shoot around this afternoon) tomorrow… argh.
Holiday Hoops
My assignment last night had me shooting more high school hoops… the local paper and TV station sponsored a tournament for all of the area high schools and there were several games. The photo above is of Michael Glover from Spotswood HS — his team beat Charlottesville HS 48-47 in pretty dramatic fashion. Spotswood led 48-46 with 4 seconds left, CHS inbounded to their star Kevin Leatherwood who drove in the lane and was fouled. Leatherwood hit his first free throw while the second shot fell short. Game over.
I lit the gym, much as I have done in the past. Two Canon 580EX Speedlights, manual mode, 1/2 power, zoomed at 50mm (it’s very important to make sure custom function #14 on these model is set to “1″, else your lights will auto power off). With that, I was able to roughly get 1/250, f/4.5, iso640… not bad for a cave. I used a hot-shoe to PC adapter attached to each strobe and then attached on the bottom to the little feet/stand that comes with the flash. The foot is then attached to the base plate of a magic arm with super clamp and attached to the top of the bleachers in the two corners on the side that I’m shooting. I connected the flash via the PC port on the adapter to a PocketWizard Multimax, positioned the light to shine roughly just above the free throw line/key area and test to make sure everything works. I then attach a safety cable to tie down anything that could fall if someone were to bump/mess with my light and I’m good to go. It takes about 4 minutes per light, 8-10 minutes total.
Someone’s Number 1
Today was a doubleheader of women’s hoops — the first round of the Marriott Cavalier Classic at UVA. I had to get there 3 hours before the first game to set up my remotes, which was pretty much a worthless endeavor since I was having trouble with my lights / remotes again. I suspect the PocketWizard Multimax that’s used to sequence my remote cameras is out of whack and/or needing to run off of batteries instead of wall power. Or perhaps it needs to be swapped out with a different PW — I’ll find out tomorrow during the two games I’m shooting then. I hope to have this year’s gremlins out of the system before Xavier comes to town on the 3rd…
More photos from LA Tech vs UMBC
Images from #15 Virginia vs Rider
UVA’s Keith Payne auditioning for Superman
This is one of my favorite football photos of all time. It’s from the 2007 season. Virginia running back Keith Payne – a large dude – decided to see how far and how high he could fly with the football. It was an amazing play — only dampened slightly by the fact that he landed just short of the end zone. It didn’t matter, as UVA went on to score a TD and squeaked out a win over Connecticut 17-16. I created this image laying down on my stomach in the back of the end zone. It was shot with my Canon Mark IIN, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras
Mike Scott’s one handed rebound
Wow. The Hoos’ finally dispatched of an opponent the way many fans expect them to do with every team they play. Virginia, led by Mike Scott’s game high 17 points and 15 boards (a one-handed version is pictured above), dispatched of the Hampton University Pirates 74-48 at the John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, VA on December 23, 2008. For me, this was a particularly fun game, given the proximity to the Christmas holiday — the arena was largely empty, the usual radio interference problems with my remotes was non-existent, and everyone seemed to be in a good mood.
More images from this game…
Happy Holidays to all!
NFL Football – Eagles at Redskins
Washington Redskins wide receiver Antwaan Randle El (82) sheds a tackle attempt by Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Greg Lewis (83) on a punt return. Randle El had several moments where he seemed to shed two, three, four tackles to get extra yards on kick returns. An amazingly talented guy.
This was probably the coldest football game that I’ve been to since perhaps freezing to death at the 2002 Continental Tire Bowl in Charlotte, NC. Temps were in the 30s but with a 15-25mph wind, it got down right silly. Regardless, it was a fun game — despite the low score (Washington won 10-3), there were plenty of interesting moments. Down a touchdown at the end of the game, McNabb drove his team all the way to the 1 yard line as time expired. Pretty dramatic.
Also witnessed what happens when you don’t back away from the sidelines quick enough — McNabb was being chased out of bounds on a play and safely reached the sideline about 3 feet in front of where I was standing… the Redskins defender didn’t get the memo to slow down when he dove after McNabb… I took several steps backward, but the Redskins team personnel next to me did not, and learned what it was like to eat linebacker. Ouch. Here’s another shot of a photog getting knocked on his arse at the backside of the end zone.
A 4:15PM kick off meant the entire game was going to be under the lights. I was surprised at how much the light at FedEx field varied in quality compared to even some college venues… 1/640, f/2.8, iso2000… in most places… dropping up to a stop in some corners. Definitely workable, but a couple stops less light than other stadiums. The best part was the turf along the Redskins bench was basically swamp soup… yellow line? What yellow line? Yum.
Thanks to my buddy and fellow photog Andrew for making it all happen. Andrew was about as cold as I was.
Shooting (and lighting) Prep Hoops
Tonight’s assignments were shooting boys and girls high school basketball games. I used to really stress over this type of game because nearly every single HS gym might as well be a dark hole as far as available light goes. To figure out a better solution, there’s already a ton of stuff (Like here and here) detailing what to do. It’s pretty simple, and with a couple of magic arms and two speedlites mounted at the top of the bleachers, it literally takes 5 minutes and you’re ready to roll. I shoot in manual mode at 1/2 power, zoomed at 50mm… for this game, that gave me roughly 1/250 at f/5.0-5.6 and ISO500-640. Much better than the alternative of shooting with ambient (1/200 f/2.8 ISO 1600 ish).
More shots from the girls game…
More shots from the boys game…
Tough day… got to shoot basketball though
It’s been a very very long day for me. Got to shoot a women’s basketball game though. Unfortunately, not much went right. Set up four remotes — 2 on the backboard, one below on the padding, and one in the stands. From the combined 300 frames from the remotes only 2 were lit in sequence with my strobe system. And of course, none of those two magical frames had anything usable. That’s pretty terrible. I was experimenting with introducing speedlites into my arena strobe system — the thought being a 580ex or two could help eliminate some of the hard shadows caused by the nets, etc. Good idea in theory, not so much in practice. Back to what I know works 
