Duke Chapel

I had a little more time to take the Leica on a field trip, this time to the campus of Duke University. Whereas nearby UNC-Chapel Hill has more of an Old Southern style architecture, Duke has a more gothic style that makes for great photography. Here are some photos from my recent trip to Duke University. (Duke University Campus Photo Gallery)

Duke Basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski

Duke beat another Spartans team and with the win Coach K got his 880th win, placing him 2nd all time among D1 men’s basketball coaches. Here are my photos from the game: Duke vs. UNC-Greensboro basketball

Freshmen midfielder Jake Tripucka #27 and senior GK Devon Sherwood #1

So this is an outdated posted obviously. Originally, it was to be posted on Inside Lacrosse’s website. However, about six weeks ago Inside Lacrosse launched their new website. The website includes not only a new front end that is visible to viewers, but also a new backend that powers the site.

#13 Brandon Allen practices face-off

The backend had some issues, in particular to me, the photo server was very flakey. I spent about 2 hours trying to post an article to no avail. By the time the issues were resolved, the post would have been a week late so I gave up.

In the process, the article I wrote was eaten by the server, so rather than write a new article from scratch, I’m going to just link to the photos that are on my site.  Duke Lacrosse vs. Penn

Also, here are some photos from a practice that Inside Lacrosse hired me to go to. Some of the photos were used in their cover article of Duke that featured Ned Crotty. Duke Lacrosse practice 1/22/2010

I was really excited to see Ned to make the cover of the March issue. He’s a great player but even better person. He deserved the cover.

Duke midfielder Ned Crotty does an ESPN filming segment. The takes from these segments were shown during the Final Four on ESPN.

Over Memorial Day weekend, I was commissioned by the Duke Athletic Department to chronicle their men’s lacrosse team on their Final Four trip to Boston, MA. Duke had beaten Navy and UNC to earn a place in the Final Four. A free trip with a team is always fun, but also a lot of work. The photography is non-stop except when sleeping or downloading photos. Still, I surely can not complain, nor could I think of anything else I’d rather be doing.

Duke did loose to Syracuse, so the trip was shorter than hoped. I can blame myself for that. I was sending a little friendly trash talk to my buddy and great IL photographer John Mecionis (whose son played for Syracuse).

The trip had some interesting moments. One of the more interesting moments were the times spent in the hotel lobby. While we were staying there, the 2009 Anime Boston convention was also going on. The costumes were interesting to say the least. I see that UVA also ran into the convention.

Thanks to the Duke team for letting a Tar Heel in their midst.

Here are some of my favorite photos in B+W and behind the scenes that came out of Memorial Day weekend.

Zach Howell and a ref's ass

I’m starting a new segment today that I’m calling “Ref Ass”. It will be dedicated to all the photos that refs have put their posterior into, destroying what would have been great photos.  I have always said that if there was a market for people who had a fetish for the rear ends of refs, I could create a website and make a fortune. But, given that I have yet to discover that market, I can only offer up some photos so that you can laugh at my pain.

The photo at the left is of Zach Howell of Duke Lacrosse winding up to take a shot while playing Syracuse.

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)

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

Cover of March 2009 Lacrosse Magazine with Ramses and Blue Devil (photo: Peyton Williams/US Lacrosse)

OK, admittedly I was more lucky than skilled to get this cover. US Lacrosse wanted a picture of two rivals for a photo shoot and lucky me lives right in between UNC and Duke, two of the biggest rivals in America. So getting this cover this month was a product of geography than my skill.  Still, I’ll take a cover when I can get it.  Anyway, here’s the story behind it:

US Lacrosse emailed me and said they wanted a picture “Ramses” and “The Blue Devil” together.  From the moment I heard about it, I knew this would be a fun shoot; something very different than what I normally do. Little did I know that the hilarity would ensue with the initial emails between the mascots. The Blue Devil for example has his own email address and never uses his real name in email. Ramses enjoyed taking some jabsat the Blue Devil when responding to emails.  For example this email came across on Feb 4th:  

“If the current schedule doesn’t work for a Blew Devil in training, then we might still be able to work in a time at Dook on Friday afternoon.  I am currently trying to find transportation to Dook for Friday afternoon…”

Ramses and Blue Devil take jabs at each other (photo: Peyton Williams/US Lacrosse)

The shoot would be held at Duke on Friday, Feb 6th. I was a little worried about Ramses. Dressing up as the UNC mascot on Duke campus (and less than a week before the UNC at Duke men’s basketball game) is what only the suicidal consider doing. Confounding my worries was that we were doing the shoot less than 30 yards from where the Duke men’s lacrosse team was practicing. Amazingly it went better than I thought. The person dressing up as the Blue Devil met with the person dressing up at Ramses. He took him to a place to change and the Blue Devil and Ramses walked with each other to the shoot. I thought that was pretty classy of Blue Devil to have his rival’s back. Proof that while the schools are rivals, there is a lot of respect between the two. The lacrosse players, while certainly doing a double look at the sight of Ramses walking on their field, never gave him any grief. In fact, Duke laxer James Goldberg worked with Ramses and Blue Devil to show them how to line up and hold their hands for a face-off.

Despite the planning that went into the shoot, I was unprepared for one surprise: Once the guys were in character and had their mascot uniform on, they would not be allowed to talk. I had planned on having them suggest ideas to me. That was obviously out of the question. Thankfully I had sketched out ideas the day before so I wasn’t totally unprepared. Still, having a one-way conversation with two models is awkward.  But they were good sports and did a great job doing everything. On the plus side, I didn’t have to worry about them blinking or making awkward faces.

My only regret? I forgot to get a photo of me with the two mascots.

Special thanks to Erin Cobb, Coach John Danowski, James Goldberg, Mike Rock and of course Ramses and Blue Devil.