I've spent many a day or night in arenas or on sports fields in Illinois. As a photojournalist I traveled all over the state taking photographs of high school athletes. Lots of hospitality rooms or school concession stand food, standing in the pouring rain or white knuckle driving in a blizzard to get to a basketball tournament in BFE. I often said "If I had a nickel for every time I've heard the National Anthem I'd be rich." Really....
Even though I have been out of the news biz for awhile, I still have the timing and the patience to get some nice photographs. Years of shooting in dimly lit gymnasiums with manual focus cameras, makes capturing images with autofocus digital cameras even that much better.
My son Logan is very gifted at sports. Currently he plays baseball in the spring, soccer in the fall and basketball in the winter. Playing well comes naturally for him, and he loves each and every game he plays. I don't know where he got those skills, they sure didn't come from his dad :)
Sometimes I often wonder about how my past may influence my future. I know for sure that all those years of high school sports have prepared me well for taking pictures of my son.
Here is a sample of his basketball prowess as played for the SJO Youth Basketball team today. The lighting in the gym was phenomenal, with a bank of windows across the top of each end of the gym, bright white walls and modern sodium vapor lights. These were all shot at ISO 800, 320th of a second at f 2.8 for all those that wanna know the details. All were taken with my ancient 80-200 2.8 Nikon lens from a couple of decades past and my Nikon D200.
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| Looking to pass the ball after crossing the half court stripe. |
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| Putting up a shot. |
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| Driving up the court past a defender. |
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| Eying up the hoop. |
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| Loose ball while on defense. |
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| Getting banged around in the paint. |
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