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.
A Big Win and an Equally Big Loss
Greater Atlanta Christian School took a big win in the Boys match up and a big loss in the girls matchup last Friday.
Basketball Comes to an End
After a good run, the Lady Spartans ended their run Wednesday night with a five point loss to Coosa High School. The Lady Spartans played a tight game down to the last minute of the game, but Coosa was able to pull and maintain a small lead to the closing buzzer.
Lady Spartans Head Coach Chandler Means completed his first season as coach of the team. He took over this year after Head Coach Mike Mitchell moved over to assume the Head Coaching role for the Men’s team.
Coach Means always showed a lot of emotion from the bench this season – and was interesting to see in action.
He was also great at motivating the team at key moments of the game.
High School Basketball – Above the Rim
After the girls and boys teams both finished successful seasons, both teams entered the region tournament near the top of the brackets.
Play started Tuesday and Wednesday at home. I covered the girls game Wednesday evening and saw the Lady Spartans move on with a decisive victory over the Walker School (Marietta).
The semi-final and final rounds of the tournament were held Friday and Saturday at Pace Academy in Atlanta. Pace Academy has a great facility on their campus. Their gymnasium is built on three levels – the floor, a concourse for the seating area, and the third level an indoor track. Obviously I was drawn immediately to the third level as I expected it offered a view I don’t get very often in high school basketball.
From the third level, equipped with a 70-200 lens at the wider end, I was able to get an almost directly vertical view over the basket.
The benefits of this viewpoint are numerous and immediately visible. The first is that you get clean looks at the players faces when they go in for a layup, or up for a block or rebound. The second is the very clean background.
The third benefit is that this is a very rare view for high school basketball, so it’s very much a distinctive product. In pro and college arenas this shot is usually captured from the catwalks using remote cameras. In high school gyms, absent catwalks, it doesn’t exist.
Girls players on Friday night going for the rebound.
Crashing bodies Saturday night versus the Wesleyan school.
Saturday’s boys game (also against Wesleyan) with a little more isolation.
Three faces all watching to see if it drops (it did).
Portrait presentation gave me more isolation on a single player – and almost distorts the view more. While the others were shot with flash, this shot of a Pace Academy player was shot using the gym’s natural light.
Basketball in a Flash
After a month layoff after the end of the football season, Greater Atlanta Christian’s basketball’s regular season (for me, at least) started and finished in the course of one week.
On consecutive Tuesdays I shot a triple header of JV Boys, Varsity Girls and Varsity Boys games at GAC’s Bradford Gymnasium, first against Avondale and then against Decatur (both Region 6 AA Opponents).
Generally speaking, my lighting goal is to provide enough light to stop the action and help control the color (the natural light in the gym has a great deal of variability in intensity depending on location, as well as color differences under different lights).
My lens choice for basketball are one of three: 50/1.8, 70-200/2.8, or 300/2.8. I use the 300/2.8 primarily for action on defense in the far end of the court.
The near court action is captured either by the 70-200/2.8….
or the 50/1.8 to get a broader field of view.
