Into the fire: my first attempt at shooting basketball

BGSU's Jordan Crawford drives to the net against Central Michigan's Trey Zeigler PHO245/Aaron Gonya

Central Michigan's Derek Jackson wrestles with
BG's Dee Brown for control of the ball

Rather than fear walking into the Stroh center, in Bowing Green. I did my best to embrace it, setting aside my own fears to accomplish my task.
    Photojournalism requires a sense of professionalism, just like wedding photography, so I made a concentrated attempt to put myself in that mindset, just as I would at a wedding. Setting my own personal biases aside and focused completely on doing the job to the best of my ability. If anything can be said for a photojournalism class, at least in my case, is that it can take you dramatically outside your comfort zone.  Until this class, I had never been to a basketball game. In fact, when I was younger I suffered from pretty serious agoraphobia, I avoided noisy auditoriums whenever possible.  So shooting  a BGSU playoff game initially presented a mental challenge.

 Technically speaking,  I was relieved that I had recently upgraded my camera gear. Inside under the lights, and shooting fast moving subjects, I had to raise the ISO to 2000 or so to be able to shoot at higher shutter speeds.   High frames per second came into play throughout the assignment, by the time you think about taking a picture, it’s too late.

Van Wright of Wapakoneta reacts to a call.

I’m not a huge fan of basketball, but the energy of the game is addicting,  I found myself really wanting to tell the story because I was drawn in to the energy.

A'uston Calhoun comforts teammate Jordan Crawford after the heartbreaking last second loss to Central Michigan.