Ben and Chris Hunt’s dad spoke with me earlier in the year about commissioning me to do some portraits of his sons. They are both players on North Carolina’s varsity lacrosse team. Ben is graduating this year so all involved wanted to get some pics of him in his lacrosse gear on campus before he entered the “real world”. We finally went out Wednesday and got some pics of them on campus, just one day before Chris had to leave town. Here is one picture from our session today. In the background is Morehead Planetarium on UNC’s campus. I thought they turned out well overall. The effect in the photo below was accomplished by using two off camera strobes.

Chris and Ben Hunt

I traveled up with UNC for the quarterfinals to Annapolis, MD. They gave a great showing, lossing by just 1 in a 11-12 loss to the Duke Blue Devils.  The Blue Devils will now advance to the NCAA Lacrosse Final Four in Foxborough, MD.  I will be traveling up there with them and it should be ton of fun; they have always been great to cover. Until then, here are some photos of Duke Lacrosse vs. North Carolina.

A picture I took yesterday at the Duke Lacrosse game (smashing) vs. Navy. Just before the game a bad storm came through leaving some perfect clouds in its wake to create a stunning sunset. Okay, so I did bump the saturation. Still, the photo turned out beautiful.

Sunsets as the Duke Lacrosse Team Meets

[Buy this image]

A great ACC championship game was played last Sunday when Duke defeated UNC 15-13 to take the ACC crown. Only days before Duke had crushed UVA 15-4 and UVA had been the seen by the media as the favorite to win the ACC title (at least at the outset of the season). I never like loosing, but I thought the Heels played very well against a team that has been crushing other teams left and right. (I certainly wouldn’t feel so great if I was a UVA fan.) MVP was in my book and the voting media’s book CJ Costabile who as a defenseman scored a hat trick. I love seeing a defenseman score and seeing one score 3 is rare. Defenseman Milton Lyles from UNC also put one through the pipes. Lyles, who can sprint like a cheetah, beat Costabile to score his goal.

Anyways, I took both some action photos and some behind-the-scenes stuff.  I put a post on Inside Lacrosse on my behind-the-scenes work. My goal was to create mirror images from both teams locker rooms. To show that while rivals, their preparation is the same. I didn’t do well as I hoped, but didn’t completely bomb it either.

I also have some of my action photos at this link: Duke vs. UNC Lacrosse photos (ACC Championship Finals)

Chapel Hill High School Lacrosse

Last Saturday I had a full day of lacrosse and headed out for two games. The first was a high school game featuring the Chapel Hill High School Tigers vs. Apex. I could only stay the first half of the game as I also had to cover Duke Lacrosse vs. Army (those photos coming later).  

Here are some Chapel Hill High School Lacrosse vs. Apex photos.

Just two photos in this post. These are from last night at Chapel Hill High School (CHHS) when they played East Chapel Hill High School. When life gives you lemons (bad contrasty light and rain), make lemonade (cool B+W photos). The worst of lighting can make some of the best B+W photos. Both photos are of CHHS boy’s varsity lacrosse during a rainy halftime.

CJ Costabile

Duke upset then-undefeated and #1 UVA Saturday in Durham. Upsets are always fun to photograph because of the emotion that comes out of the games. I went in with the Duke team postgame into the locker room and I could almost get a high out of their energy. It’s a rush that is unmatched. 

Here are my Virginia lacrosse vs. Duke photos.

Wow. (btw, check out some of my Billy Bitter photos)

Brad Ross

I am a little behind on this.  But a couple weeks ago, UNC hosted Duke lacrosse at Kenan Stadium. It turned out to be a gully washer with rain that never let up the entire time. My photos honestly didn’t come out much better than the weather. My glasses kept fogging up making it difficult to track the ball. So maybe that is why I wasn’t in a hurry to get them up.

Duke vs. North Carolina Lacrosse Photos

Providence Day could not contain the Chapel Hill High School Tigers lacrosse team.

I’m embarrassed to say that while I’ve photographed a lot of lacrosse, I have never photographed a high school game. I’ve only been doing the D1 college scene. But now that I’m shooting for US Lacrosse now, they are encouraging me to hit the high school scene. This is consistent with US Lacrosse’s philosophy of covering lacrosse from the pros to the grassroots for their publication Lacrosse Magazine.

I took a look at the schedule for Chapel Hill High School and saw they were playing at 10 am at Duke, just before the Duke vs. Georgetown game. I was pretty stoked because usually all varsity high school games are at night under terrible lighting. So to see a day game was a treat. Second. it could have worked out any better having the game just before the Georgetown game and just 20 yards away.

Any way, here are the photos from the game that I took.

edit: I have to take back my first  sentence.  I did back in 2002 while living in Washington, DC take pictures at Gonzaga high school to test out a new lens I bought.