Basketball Media Day

Basketball is right around the corner. In my book, the season tips-off with the annual media day at UF. All the players gather in the practice gym for portraits and interviews. The players are always fun to work with and usually put up with crazy requests from the photographers.

I wanted to do something a little different this year with my portraits. In the past, I set up some lights and had the players do something with the basketball. And I would wind up with a photo of Patric Young (starting center) flexing and yelling with the basketball.

So this year, I brainstormed some lighting ideas with my boss Rob and came up with something I think is pretty fun. I ended up using five lights. Ten points if you can tell where they’re all located.

I couldn’t let the day go by without getting some fun shots of Patric and Will. They’ve made Media Day a lot of fun the past few years, and this year was no exception. For the shot of the two seniors together, I gave them my phone to act like they were taking “selfies” to post on social media. I totally forgot about the K-State cover on my phone. Will took my phone and started to act like he was taking photos of Patric. Patric stopped posing and said “Uh oh, we have a problem. Look.” And he grabbed the phone and pointed at the KSU logo. Then he looked at me… I said “You guys are going to beat KU this year right? So we’re all on the same side.” He shook his head and said “We all have our faults.”  (K-State beat UF last season in Kansas City) But they were cool and played around with the phone for a few minutes.

If I set up all these lights, of course I had to get one of me and the other photogs… Two of these images have since become profile photos. Is there a greater reward for a photographer than that? Yes, but not many.

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