Basketball is Back, So Is the Blog

My last basketball game was 332 days, March 11, 2020. The DePaul Prep Rams loss to St. Ignatius in the 3A Sectional semi-final. After that, nothing. Until yesterday.

Shay Boyle and the wonderful people at Notre Dame College Prep allowed me to come out and photograph their game against Prospect. I have photographed quite a few Notre Dame games in recent year. They have had great teams. It truly was a shame that they could not complete their playoff run last year. They just had a great team, really fun to watch, really skilled, tons of talent and heart. I have no doubt they would have won 3A. Okay, they might have beaten St. Viator in the sectional final, maybe. But if they did, I have no doubt they would have beaten Fenwick in the Super-sectional, some downstate team in the semi-final and then Morgan Park in the state championship game. No doubt.

These COVID games are weird. No fans. Worse yet I can’t photograph from the floor. Shooting basketball from above doesn’t make for good photos. Photographing anything from above does not make for good photos. But we can only do what we can do. And we can’t shoot from the gym floor.

I am not the most naturally gifted photographer. I really have to work at it through trial and error. These Notre Dame photos are not very good, either in terms of exposure and color or composition. I will figure it out. I will find the best spot from above in the gym to get usable shots. I mostly try to watch what other photographers were doing. Allen Cunningham found a great spot got some excellent shots. He always does such fine work.

So here they are.

DePaul Prep Football Waits . . .

As we were coming out of the depths of the COVID shutdown, I started planning for high school sports again. DePaul Prep was moving into a new school building and building a new football stadium. I thought I would, and still will, fully document/photograph the first game and the first season in the new stadium.

When the Governor and the IHSA moved the bulk of high school sports to the Spring, my plans changed. The Fall practices were a chance to take some photos, see the new state-of-art DePaul Prep stadium and have the players and coaches get used to having me around so I am not such a distraction when play begins.

I would like to thank DePaul Athletic Director Pat Mahoney and Head Coach Mike Passarella for graciously inviting me in and for being so accommodating. And a special thanks to the young men who carry on the proud tradition of Gordon Tech/DePaul Prep football.

As always, Go Rams!

These are some of my photos.

Stay at Home Order Protest at Thompson Center

On my way to drop off Dan downtown, I noticed police and media gathering in anticipation of a protest at the Thompson Center. I wasn’t covering the protest for any publication but it has been over a month since I photographed any people so I could not resist. I just wanted to shoot something. I went to the office, put on an N-95 mask, gloves and a hat. Then walked up there. I love a good protest. Some many different people to photograph.

This protest was pretty tame. Not a whole lot of action. But lots of honking horns. If never hear another horn honking it will be too soon.

I got some good shots. I learned a lot about how to shoot in the harsh midday sun. The good part is that was plenty of light. My Canon 7D works great in lots of light. Just as sharp as the 5D Mark IV. One also has a lot more options in Lightroom when there is plenty of light.

I got a very interesting shot of a couple at the southwest corner of Clark and Randolph. They were lite with direct sunlight from behind them on Clark Street and from in front of them by reflection off the Thompson Center windows. The high f-stop meant everything was in focus and there is very little depth perspective. I am fascinated by this one.

I hope you like the photos.

Day 28

We are four full weeks into this stay-at-home phase of this historic global pandemic, and I have not written a word about it in this blog. I started this blog as a place to post photographs, not a place to vent or opine on subjects I know little about. I am not a columnist with a gift for observation, analysis and the English language.

Since I haven’t been shooting events, I have only posted twice in the last 28 days. The first was on Day 1, photos from the DePaul Prep v. North Grand regional final basketball game a few days prior. The second was Day 15 when I posted previously unpublished photos from a DePaul Prep regional playoff baseball game last spring. I was missing baseball that day. I ran across the photos that I did not have time to process immediately after I took them. Then the relevancy of the photos was overtaken by events, so they never got posted. On April 4th, I thought people would like to see them.

Nevertheless, I have still been taking photos. I have started carrying my DSLR everywhere I go—which turns out to be very few places, basically just to the Jewel and to my office downtown.

Some of those photos are below. I generally don’t publish in black and white but somehow it seems appropriate now. The photo the bird is in color. I saw this strange looking bird among some pigeons sitting quieting in a corner of a building on LaSalle Street. I have never seen a bird like this before. It seems quite out of place—a duck sized bird with an unusually long beak. Perhaps someone knows what it is?

These photos are not particularly good. I am not a good street photographer, nor am I particularly trying to be. This global pandemic is requiring me to adjust and pushing me in an other direction.

I hope you like the photos.