After finishing the Andrew Brackman project I wanted to start a new project that provided a good challenge. As early as Spring 2007, I knew the project would be about lacrosse. Lacrosse is such an interesting sport in both the play and the equipment. On the field the action makes lacrosse one the most photographically interesting sports to capture on film. Very fast moving with little time to sit and “chimp” unlike with football where there is more dead time than playing time. (’chimp’ is a photographer’s term to mean when a photographer is looking at pictures on the back of their digital camera and not watching the action.) Sportswriter and successor to Walter Camp, Grantland Rice, is credited with this often quoted observation about lacrosse:

“Once in a while they argue about the fastest game - hockey or basketball; then about the roughest game - boxing, football or water polo. But when it comes to the top combination the answer is lacrosse - the all star combination of speed and body contact. It requires more elements of skill than any game I know.”

The equipment employed is equally interesting, notably the stick. I’ve started to realize more and more the symbiotic relationship between a player and his lacrosse stick. Lacrosse players have different options for how to string the stick and stringing a stick is an art form of its own. I know of no other sport where there is such a close relationship between a player and his gear, or the ability to personalize their gear to their exacting standards. The action and the equipment combines to make lacrosse a compelling and visually interesting sport to photograph both on and off the field.

After lacrosse became the obvious choice I struggled between going with Duke or UNC. I want to say first I had a great experience with Duke when I went with them to Baltimore for the Final Four in 2007. Coach John Danowski was exceedingly friendly to me both then and to this day. Same goes for the players and sports information director Art Chase. Choosing between the two schools was not an easy choice by any measure. However, below is why UNC made sense for me:

My first “real” experience doing sports photography was my sophomore year at UNC out on the turf of Henry Stadium (back before Henry Stadium was built and there were metal bleachers in its place) photographing a lacrosse scrimmage on February 14, 1998 vs Radford. I say “real” because until then my only experiences in sports photography were up in the bleachers of Fetzer Field - way too far away from the action to get decent photos. But at Henry there was not as much security at field level as there was at Fetzer, so I sat myself down at midfield on the sidelines and started snapping away. Sitting there could have probably gotten me thrown out of the place, but I never was and got some decent shots out of the game. I had so much fun with the experience that I was hooked both on sports photography and lacrosse ever since. Moreso, I became fan of UNC lacrosse after that. While a student I met a handful of UNC lax players including #43 and current assistant coach Judd Lattimore.

So working with UNC made sense for me. I had been a fan of the team for nearly 10 years now and more importantly I was an alum of UNC. I felt comfortable there and UNC lacrosse was a part of my heart. UNC lacrosse sports information director Dave Lohse is the first person to have ever hired me, so I felt like I owed it to him. Last season I had slowly grown to know a few of the current players so I would not be walking into a situation where I didn’t know a soul — another big plus.

Finally, I wanted to be able to give something back to my alma mater and a team I have enjoyed watching so much. I hope the players will appreciate this body of work when they get older. I also hope it helps bring attention to this team and the great things happening there. Honestly, I would not donate so much of my time to most sports like I am doing now for UNC lacrosse. A long project like this is a huge time commitment for me and for any potential project I have to be excited about the subject before I’ll ever consider picking up the camera. If I were to do this for other sports, it would have taken financial incentives to get me to invest the time to do the project.

Beyond altruistic reasons this will be a great way for me to grow as a photographer. Just as working with Andrew Brackman was a learning experience, so will working with lacrosse team. I will (at least I hope I will) come out of this more creative as a photographer with the ability to find new and exciting angles in a long-term project. Going to the weight room over and over tends to get mundane - it takes some serious creative thinking to find new angles in situations like this.

Now for a mid-year update and reflection.

First, I can’t believe we are already halfway through the year. It seems like only yesterday that I was in Dave Lohse’s office pitching this idea. That said, I am looking forward to 2nd semester because that is when things should really start getting interesting. The season starts and that is where I’m expecting some of the best photos to come from. I was looking back at the photos I did in Baltimore with the Duke team in the Final Four. In only a short period (Memorial Day weekend) I was able to produce a really compelling set of photos. When I assessed at the two month mark where I was with the UNC project, I was pretty disappointed with where I was. I couldn’t figure out why there was so much more in the Duke photos than with UNC. I finally realized there were two contributing factors: First, I’m taking it a little easier and not stressing myself out with producing a body of work in a short period of time. When I was with Duke, the first game I didn’t know if I would be back on the bus to Durham afterwards with a potential loss to Cornell. So I photographed the heck of them in the locker room. With UNC, I’m taking if much slower and doing more thinking instead of shooting. I’m thinking on new angles and ideas to try to make the photos that I take count. Having a long period of time to produce a body of work is therefore less stressful on me. The second reason is there haven’t been the intense pre-game moments with UNC that I got with Duke. Obviously there have been no games, so this is to be expected. I had some great stuff with Duke of players putting on eye black, working on their sticks and so forth. I think these opportunities will present themselves once UNC’s season kicks in gear.

Back to the mid-year assessment, the second observation is that this is definitely taking a lot of my time. I’m fortunate that my job is flexible and I can leave before 5pm. Otherwise, I would never be able to catch all of these 3:30 weight lifting sessions and practices. The down side is I still have to make up that time at work, so when I work with the team, I would have to come back home and put in another 2 or more hours for my day job. Then I have to go through all the photos, delete the bad ones, then caption and archive the better ones. For every hour I’m with the team producing photos, I typically have to take another hour or two editing photos. With making up the hours in my day job, plus the editing it takes, it has certainly eaten up my free time. Not that I had a lot to start with. Us sports photographers usually have our nights and weekends destroyed by commitments. So figuring in my day job, the lacrosse project and my prior commitments photographing football, basketball and other games, my last few months have been busy. If I can survive basketball season, I should be fine.

Third observation, I’m having fun. Despite the hours, I have not regretted the decision of doing this project and assume that life would be much more boring without it. As I sit here over Christmas vacation, I find myself missing the project. I can’t wait to get started again.

Fourth, the guys have been easy to work with. Getting the “behind-the-scenes” scenes requires me to be in the personal lives. I told Brackman that I felt like his stalker at times. It’s the same today with this project. I feel awkward at times picking up the camera and photographing one of the guys while they are in their apartment for example. Or when I was out with some of the sophomores eating out in Chapel Hill. It feels like I’m invading their privacy at times, even if I did come out with them on their own volition. Still, they have been great about inviting me in their lives. Without their trust and access they have given me, the project would not be feasible.

As 2007 gives way to 2008, I’m looking forward to this next half of the project. The ride should be fun.

Booyah baby. The ACC put posted 3 of the top 5 preseason rankings for men’s lacrosse according to Inside Lacrosse Magazine.They are as follows:

• #1    Johns Hopkins
• #2    Duke
• #3    Virginia
• #4    Georgetown
• #5    North Carolina

Maryland wrapped up the list at #6.

Until Spring semester starts in January, there probably won’t be any further postings on the project. The guys will be starting final exams very soon. I’m not exactly sure what I will do with myself while not working on the project. Acutally, I do know. I have gigabytes of photos to sort through, caption and back-up to my PhotoShelter account. That will probably keep me preoccupied over the Christmas holiday. I’m backing up all my photos online so that they are backed-up offsite just in case my computer crashed or my house burned down. It would be a huge loss to me to loose all the work I’ve done.Tonight though was the junior dinner. Mrs. Haus was a champ to come home earlier today from Ohio State and cook a meal for a hungry set of guys plus a hungry photographer. Tonight she made a chicken casserole, salad, bread and a homemade cherry cobbler.Before the meal, coach Haus’ youngest son Grant was able to once again sucker a player into playing him in a game. This time it was on the Nintendo Wii instead of paper football. Chris Cortina was the first victim and was promptly downed with ease by Grant while playing boxing and football. The other players said goalie Grant Zimmerman’s skills were legendary and he was nominated by the other players to take on little Grant and preserve what pride the players had left. I didn’t see how the Grant vs. Grant match-up played out, but big Grant was showing a respectable performance on the outset. My apologies to the seniors but I will be missing their dinner. I have to be in San Fransisco next week and New York the week after for business.

Today I was lucky again as there was new material for me waiting in the weight room. The team today did testing in the weight room at different stations with tests including the bench press test, squat test, stretch test and vertical leap test. I’m guessing the point of the tests were measure the maximum weight they can now lift to establish a new baseline. The tests also provide the opportunity to monitor progress throughout the season.

“Jersey” Mike Burns probably had one of the more impressive lifts while doing squats. It looked like at one point the metal bar could fatigue and snap under the load that he was lifting. Most all the teammates gathered around him and encouraged him as he did his lift Jack Ryan also stood out in the vertical leap, almost getting higher than could be measured.

I’m not sure how much I’m going to be able to write between now and January. I will be out of town traveling for business traveling the next couple of weeks for my “real job” as I call it. But next semester is when the project should really start to get interesting as the season starts up. As a housekeeping note, special thanks to James at Inside Lacrosse for linking to this blog. I appreciate the attention to it. Coach Haus was kind enough to mention the attention the project is getting today after lift. The players clapped and that was very encouraging to me as I work on this long project.

(note: this is a delayed posting on events from Friday, November 16th)

As the project progresses, I’m finding I’m struggling more and more to get original material in the weight room. I’ve made a commitment to come out at least once a week and work on the project. The downside to that is the environment gets to be monotonous. I’m not sure how many angles I can photograph someone doing bicep curls. To break my stale photography, I’ve been looking at books from some of the master of photography to try and get some insight from their work on how they would approach creating photos. What are angles that I’m not thinking about? How could I mix up my photography techniques to create a new vision?

Sometimes I get lucky, and something totally new is put in my lap. Such was the case today when after weights, the team went to the parking garage behind the field house for endurance training. The session consisted of two, 7-minute events. The first consisted of running laps, alternating between sprinting and jogging. The second session was done in the stair case. The guys raced up three flights of stairs on one side, and down another side. They alternated going up and down for seven minutes straight. It looked excruciating to me, but everyone made it the entire seven minutes. Although if they really want to know what is excruciating, they should come up with me and walk up to the catwalks of the Dean Smith Center where I have strobes installed. Before every basketball game I have to go up there and turn them on. There’s no elevator, instead it’s a mix of stairs and steep inclines.

The project was in need of some major help - I was having a lot of problems getting up with some of the guys while they were just “hanging out”. As photos capturing that was going to be a big part of the project, I was really worried about that facet of the book. Last night I sent an email out to a few of the players hoping to get a response and fortunately Michael Jarvis called me and invited me over with him and some of the sophomores as they watched the Patriots vs. Colts game. Beyond Michael there was also Tommy D’Alessandro, Mike Burns, Joe Howard and freshman Kevin Piegare. Kerry McCormick poked his head in every now and then too. Around 2nd quarter the guys started talking about where to get some food. It came down to Shakura’s Japan Express or IP3 (Italian Pizzaria III) on Franklin Street. Shakura’s won out easily when Jarvis said he wanted to go there. So we all, minus Kerry, packed ourselves into Joe’s SUV. Tommy got stuck in the back since there were too many of us to fit in the seats.

I took some photos in the restaurant and I wondered at times it the two people working the counter wondered who these guys were, and why were they so famous that a photographer was following them around taking photos? Maybe the latest recruits for Roy Williams?

I arrived to the locker room a little earlier again this day in my persuite of my quest to get some better photos in the locker room before practices. Today provided some interesting photos ops. Andrew Moss showed off his juggling skills while Michael Jarvis showed off his lack of skills. Mike Burns was working on the stringing of his stick which provided some nice photos.

After weightlifting, the team gathered straight into the team room, adjacent to their locker room in the Kenan Stadium Fieldhouse for a players-only meeting. Well…players-only plus a certain photographer. Fletcher Gregory, with some help from Nick Tintle, led the team in a voting session to pick this year’s motto. There were about seven or so options that were slowly pared down to a small list. After a lively discussion and ideas being thrown out (some good, some…not), the team finally picked their motto. I’m not going to list it on this blog as I’m not sure if they

want it publicly disseminated for now.

Last month the freshman had their class dinner at Coach Haus’ house, and tonight the sophomores had their chance to enjoy Mrs. Haus’ home cooking. On tonight’s menu was lasagna, salad and some of Coach Haus’ famous garlic bread. I say famous because Mrs. Haus showed us all a cookbook from the eighties where UNC athletes and coaches contributed recipes. In there was Coach Haus’ recipe for the bread, written when he was in school at UNC. Also in there was the recipe for I think crab cakes from some little known basketball player and UNC alum named Michael Jordan.

Before the dinner the sophomores thought about ideas for what the team should do for their next big trip. Before they arrived on campus as freshmen the team went to Japan the summer before. During their senior year, the sophomores will likely go on their big trip along with the rest of the team over summer. Ideas like Australia, southern France and Italy were all considered.After the team left, I was suckered out of a dollar by Grant Haus, the youngest of coach’s four boys, for a raffle. I thought he was going to show me a magic trick but the only trick was making my dollar disappear. Seems the dollar was for a raffle at his school. Dave Lohse was also hit up by Grant and put in his dollar. I was mad at Dave, telling him he lowered the odds I would win the raffle with his extra entry. But knowing it was for a good cause, I could only be so mad.

I also showed Dave a prototype of the book I’m putting together. The content and design was thrown together so the point was to show Dave what the size of the book would be, and what the casing would look like. Coach Haus wasn’t allowed to see the book as I’m not showing any coaches or players until the final version is ready. But that didn’t stop his wife and kids from checking it out.In regards to layout, last week I purchased a copy of Adobe InDesign. I struggled with trying to learn the program when I initially installed it. There are some similarities to Adobe Photoshop, but plenty of differences to keep it interesting and confusing. For example. I looked and looked for how to change the background color of the paper. I expected to find a fill tool like Photoshop has but never found it. After much head scratching and even more Googling, I found the solution. With the basics now mastered, I’m having a great time learning the power of this program. I am trying to layout the book little by little as I go through the season so I’m not stuck with a lot of work to do in the summer. Given that I’ve probably spent 50 hours already in the past week working in the program, I’m glad I started now.

I am a little behind on posting so the post encapsulates two days of events.

October 02, 2007

The team had a dual lifting and practice today. In the weeks before fall ball, it is not unusual for the team to lift for an hour then drive over to Finley Fields or walk to the turf field for a scrimmage. I skipped the weightroom and arrived at around 4:45 at Finley Fields for practice. A couple of the guys said as I arrived, “You missed weights”. I said, “Well, I do have a real life beyond this!” Of course, that is getting harder to believe myself. With the time spent shooting, editing the photos once I get home, and writing in this journal, I seem to spend an inordinate amount of me “free” time on this project. That said, I would rather do this than come home early every day and watch TV. I’m trying to shoot as much as I can for the time being because I know that once basketball season starts, I will be fairly busy with that. ACC basketball tends to keep the local sports photographers busy with three schools near each other.During practice sophomore Michael Jarvis let me know that he and some other players were participating in a flag football game. Michael, Fletcher Gregory, Tim Kaiser, Grant Zimmerman, Nick Tintle, Jack Ryan and Sean Burke were on an intermural team playing another team of UNC students that was sorely over matched. Even though the guys had started lifting at 3:30 and then had practice, they showed up to the flag football game at 7pm looking like they were full of energy and had rested all day. They absolutely clobbered the other team. Out ran them, out played them, just out did them in every quantifiable aspect, including the final score. I saw Sean and Tim outflank the other team like Terrell Owens with sheer speed and scoring touchdowns. Only downside of the game was that it was at night under the lights of the Michael Hooker fields. The light was so dark that I was forced to pushing the film speed on the camera to ISO 3200, something I’ve never done since I’ve owned the camera. Hopefully the guys will have another game during the daylight.

October 05, 2006

This was another dual lifting/practice day. I got to the locker room a little earlier than normal as I’m trying to do a better job of getting photos of the players interacting in there. It adds to the “behind-the-scenes” feel, but it is hard to get photos in the locker room. Players are changing and such so there are lots of times that I have to keep the camera down. Then right after they change they walk out immediately to head to the weight room. Getting their earlier at least gave me a chance to get some photos of those who arrive early. Coach Haus spoke to the team for about 10 minutes and the guys then headed to the weight room. An hour later, the team drove out to Finley Field for a soggy practice under the rain. From the start of practice till about 10 minutes before the end there was a steady rain falling. North Carolina is still under a severe drought so it was hard to complain too much. It was hard for me to photos though under the rain. I’m always worried about getting my camera wet both from a electronics-and-water-don’t-mix standpoint, but also because water on the front lens of the camera will create blurry photos. So while the players ran and practiced in the rain, I walked around with my umbrella shielding my camera. I had the handle of the umbrella tucked in my belt while I braced the umbrella with my left elbow, and took photos with both hands. I looked like a complete geek, but I was a geek with a dry camera.After practice, Tim Kaiser had a load of water dumped on him by his teammates, presumably because today is his birthday. I didn’t realize that would happen so unfortunately I missed the event. Next time I’ll have to keep a better eye out for when people have their birthdays.

Not really much to write today. Guys had practice today at 3:30. Some drills and the like. I will say I am learning more and more about strategy in lacrosse as the weeks go on. Although, I’m way behind anyone else on the field.