On Thursday I went over to the Mizzou Arena with Stephanie Hinkle to photograph the University of Missouri’s women’s basketball team demolish Texas – Pan American 83-34. I haven’t photographed basketball much, but have found that I can at least find the occasional feature photo even if my action images haven’t yet developed to the point where I’d like to have them.
I haven’t photographed much basketball before, so I didn’t exactly know what I was doing when I went to photograph Hickman High School’s women’s basketball team play Helias High School. I have no doubt that I am at the bottom rung of the totem pole, but even so, I had fun. Especially when Hickman’s junior guard Aqua Corpening dove down to the floor after shooting for a two-pointer with only a minute left to the game. Just as she’s about to hit the hardwood floor, the ball starts to go through the net.
I also thought that the way that the Helias team was swarming around the same player, Aqua Corpening, was fun in this image:
Usually I’m told to find a good sports feature in addition to the usual sports action. Most of the time I can find interesting people in the crowd, but I had forgotten that a better opportunity would come at half time, when people can go out onto the court and shoot baskets themselves:
This weekend I photographed a college football game–Missouri Tigers versus the Furman Paladins–along with John Schreiber, for the Columbia Missourian. It was only my third or fourth time photographing football, and my first college game, so it was a little different. I was also using a Canon 600mm f/4 L IS lens from CPS, which made things extra different. But it was a lot of fun, and there’s a web gallery here.
While at the game, I was assigned to get a feature photo of the crew of “Big Mo,” an over-sized drum on a trike that is used to lead cheers of “MIZ–ZOU” at the games, as well as run up and down the end zone with the cheerleaders after a touch down. At the end of the game, David Champlin started dancing with the Golden Girls, who are a more “sparkly” version of the cheerleaders. The result was the photo above. Sadly, it will never find its way into the Missourian, so I’m posting it here for all to see. I suppose it’s better this way.
Secondly, I thought I would post this portrait of Anthony Fitzgerald and Arnold Cromwell, two custodians–one from Hickman High School, the other from Rock Bridge High School–to be featured in this week’s VOX Magazine in the “On-The-Job” section. I was happy with the final select, but also felt that the image below worked fairly well. I do wish I had some more time with them to get a moment between the two, but at the very least I feel that this was a respectful presentation of the two men.