Boys Slam it Home
Following right behind the path the Varsity Girls had blazed, the Boys stormed out quickly to a big lead against 6-AA Avondale and won 93-35.
Girls Basketball: Off and Running
Friday night Greater Atlanta Christian hosted regional opponent Avondale High School for a Region 6 AA match up. From the first tip, Greater Atlanta Christian started the game with the normal press defense and quickly mounted a big lead. By the half, GAC was leading 51-6.
6-AA Championship Game: Blessed Trinity vs. GAC
The Greater Atlanta Christian School Boys were the second half of the doubleheader I photographed last Saturday. This was the second year in a row that the GAC boys made it as far as the finals. This year, with the tournament being held on their home floor in the new Long Forum, they brought a significant fan presence.
The game was full of action. Trent Wiedeman was back in action this week and made a presence for himself underneath the basket.
In Search of New Shots
After two covering Basketball the last two weekends, I started looking for new concepts and looks this week as the Spartans celebrated their Senior night and took on Westminster.
Basketball has a lot of repetition to the game flow. Drive, shoot, rebound, retreat. If you photograph from the same viewpoint, you end up with repetitive images.
One concept I’ve had in mind after the first weekend was to catch a high flying player in isolation (or maybe with a second player) going up for a layup, dunk or rebound against the backdrop of the student section. Unfortunately, GAC’s Trent Wiedeman missed tonight’s game so I was left without the tallest man on the floor. I was also short a few student’s in the student section as the school’s winter break started Friday.
I shot from the opposite end of the floor with the 300/f2.8. (more…)
The Student Section
GAC’s student body has taken well to the new Long Forum’s student seating at the end of the floor. They have brought a new enthusiasm to the basketball games that was missing at the old gym.
The umbrellas disappeared this week against Westminster, but was replaced by a lot of banter traded with the visiting team.
It’s Open: The Long Forum at Greater Atlanta Christian School
Saturday I worked the day’s events at Greater Atlanta Christian School. After starting the day with the Spartans Hall of Fame Inductions, followed by the crowning of the Homecoming court, I photographed a pair of Varsity Basketball Games.
The Long Forum is Greater Atlanta Christian’s new 3,000 seat multi-purpose arena. With video screens, real seating, high tech lighting the building is the ultimate in high school sporting facilities. Game day finally arrived after years of planning.
Back to School – Basketball at Lovett
Last Friday I returned to the playing field, so to speak, with my first engagement for Martin Photography for the Winter season as three Greater Atlanta Christian School teams met with the Lovett School at Lovett’s Atlanta campus.
I actually photographed three different games in two different gymnasiums last Friday – first the Girls Varsity match in the main Gymnasium, followed by the 9th Grade and JV Boys games in the lower school gymnasium. As I needed to be mobile, I kept to on-camera lighting. However, I used my Bogen Manfrotto 233B Flash bracket on my main camera body to get my flash high off of the camera to reduce the occurence of red eye and help make the light a little more natural.
As with Football, the flash is used to create the “Stop Action” needed for a crisp photograph. 1/4 Power on the Canon 550EX was all that was needed to give enough light at the closer ranges that basketball is photographed at. It allowed for use of ISO400 and a more narrow aperture (f4 to f5.6, depending on proximity to play) to allow more depth of field using the 70-200 zoom.
