UNC head football coach Butch Davis

I worked for the good folks at Inside Carolina for the Spring Football game.  The head photographer for Inside Carolina, Jim Hawkins, was stuck in San Antonio still after photographing the Final Four, so I got tried to be Jim for day (I didn’t have the bluetooth earpiece so I couldn’t pull it off.)

Linked are some photos from the game posted on Inside Carolina. [Gallery 1]  [Gallery 2]

Interesting note from after the game.  I had to photograph the post-game press conference in the football facility (which is amazing for those who have not been lucky enough to go in there).  When I left, I was only only the 2nd floor but had to go to 1st to get out.  I was lost and had no idea how to get to the first floor without taking the elevator.  So I hit the down button and prayed that no one would be on the elevator going doing, lest I feel like a lazy oaf.  I hear the elevator slow down to 2nd, the doors fly open, and no one is there but head UNC football coach Butch Davis himself.  ”Crap!” I thought, but he quickly said in a friendly tone “You going down?  Well come on man”.  So whew, embarassment avoided.  In the 10 seconds I was with him in the elevator, plus what I heard of him on the field and in the post-game press conference, I can see why this guy is so well respected.  He’s the kind of coach that players would run through walls for.  They love him, you can tell.

BTW, I’ve lately had close encounters with all three local football coaches in the last two months.  In February, I was in Duke football coach David Cutcliffe’s office photographing him and the Manning brothers.  Last month, I was at the residence of NC State head football coach Tom O’Brien, photographing him and his family for NC State.  Then this encounter with coach Davis.

Art Chase at Duke University sent me an ominous instant message of just “call my cell”. I thought at first I was in trouble, but Art asked me if I could photograph some “guests” that would be with the new Duke Football coach, David Cutcliffe. I wasn’t jumping at the chance to do it, because the shoot was going to be at 8pm Saturday, just one hour before the 9pm tip-off for the Duke vs. North Carolina basketball game that I was also photographing. Usually its a stressful game to set-up for and shoot, and I thought I would be a basket case around 8pm. But Art has helped me a lot in the past so I said “sure”. As for who the “guests” were, I assumed it was rich alumni and donors and didn’t give it a second thought.

Eli Manning, me (the shorter Peyton), Peyton Manning (photo by Art Chase/Duke Athletics)

Before every game there is a press meal, and during the meal, Bob Rosato from sports illustrated mentioned that both Eli and Peyton Manning played for coach Cutcliff and that one of them had been spotted. I may not have gone to Duke, but I can put two and two together. So I walk over to Art and ask him, “Does one of the guests that I’m photographing tonight happen to have the same first name as I do?” He laughed, said “yes”, and I said I was now an even bigger basket case now.In the end, it was fine. I was even able to slip to the other side of the lens and get a picture of me with the Manning brothers. They are pretty nice guys. It was a room full of only a few people, so it wasn’t like they had to put on a show. I think it reflected who they really are — pretty down to earth.Also walking around was a guy whose voice seemed very familiar, but I could not place it. I turned around to see that Matthew McConaughey was also there in the coach’s office. So man, I never thought I would be meeting the Manning brothers and Matthew McConaughey before this game. Crazy how things happen. (btw, Matthew, also a very nice guy)

Side note, if you are a photographer, and sports information director asks you to take a photo of an event, but is vague about who will be there, take the assignment. Two years ago Bruce Winkworth at NC State asked me to photograph an event at a NC State baseball game. He said there would be a special guest there, but could not say who it would be. I couldn’t do the event though as I was booked for another assignment. I found out later that the guest was none other than Alex Rodriguez.

ACC Football official Ron Cherry gives a verbal description on a foul during the NC State / Maryland game last Saturday.  Funny thing was I was at the game and totally missed this call.  I guess when I am photographing a game my head is in the game and I miss what is going on around me.  Enjoy…

In September, I photographed the shots that would be used for the NC State men’s basketball poster. Chris Alston in marketing and promotions wanted to have action photos of the players mirroring action photos of players from the ‘83 team. 2008 marks the 25th anniversary of the national championship team with Coach Jim Valvano.

The players were given a copy of the photo by Chris of the ‘83 player they were going to emulate while I set up the lights to strobe the court. For each player, I met quickly with him to look at the photo with him and discuss strategies to getting the right shot. We took three or four photos and compared what I had on the camera vs. the photo. Usually I needed to talk with the player again to have him move his angle or hands and retry. For the most part, the photos came out pretty good. The poses were not perfectly the same, but given the time pressures we had, I though it was a pretty solid job.

Kudos to Chris Alston and staff for coming up with this idea. I thought it was a really creative way to remember the the ‘83 team. Thanks to the players too. They were eager to do the best they could to honor the ‘83 players and do the best job possible. They were patient and accommodating.

Below is the poster. The ‘83 player is in B+W behind the current player.

Whoever said “timing is everything” in sports photography left out the other important part: lighting. This post will be of little interest to most people, but for students of photography or those looking to learn more about sports photography, I hope you find it of interest.

One aim of sports photography is to isolate your subject. Typically that is done through depth-of-field, namely a shallow one. You keep your subject in focus, but objects 2 to 3 feet in front of the athlete are out focus. Depth of field (DOF) is determined by three main things:

1. The focal length of the lens used. All things being equal, longer focal lengths leads to a more shallow DOF.
2. Distance to the camera to the subject. The closer the subject is to the camera, all things being equal, the more shallow the DOF.
3. The aperture or f/stop. All things being equal, as the lens is “opened up” (moves towards f/1) the DOF becomes more shallow.

But light can also be used in to isolate a subject. In this case, a sports photographer has to be lucky but also has to be able to spot the chances where the perfect lighting can be had.

Below is a photo from Carter-Finley Stadium, home of the North Carolina State Wolfpack Football team. There is about an 8 minute window on the field when the sun is low enough that Vaughn Towers cast a shadow over the field and stands, but there is a sliver of light that cuts through the openings where the exits are. It lets in just a tad of light over a very small part of the field, but if you can get a picture of a play in this light, it’s just perfect:

Notice how only the player(s) are in the light, but the stands and even foreground are in the shade. These moments don’t come often, but keep your eyes out for when it comes.

—- Update October 8, 2007 —-

Below I thought I would add an example of a flat photo where the subject blends in with the background. This is typically what you get as again, the sun has to be in the perfect position to get the lighting like you saw above.

Wanted to highlight some excellent work by Ethan Hyman, staff photographer for the (Raleigh) News and Observer. Ethan did a shoot of both the new football coaches together and taped the process. Thought fans would find it interesting. [LINK]

Andrew Brackman signing day party

Well, this is going to probably be the final posting on the Andrew Brackman project. (sniff, sniff). Time to retire the project and the postings around it. Before I did, just wanted to share and write down some final thoughts about my experience.

First, I had a lot of fun doing the project. Andrew was great to work with, not to mention easy to work with. He made my job very easy and it is something I would do again. It took, of course, a lot of my time and energy. But it was worth every moment. This was new and uncharted territory for me and I was apprehensive at first. But Andrew, his family, the coaches and all the players made it as easy as possible for me. They all made me feel welcomed and I appreciated that greatly.

When I first started photographing sports as a student at UNC, the higher-profile athletes seemed larger-than-life. I stereotyped them as the kind of people who were different from everyone one else, and would not care to deign you with their company or attention. A short 5 second autograph would be the only interaction you could hope to have with them; and they may not even look at you in the eye when they did that.

But there have been times that athletes have broken down my preconceptions. An athlete at UNC or NC State emails me and tells me they appreciated all the photos that I took of them. Wow, that means so much to me personally when that happens. An athlete recognizes me and learns my name, saying hello to me on and off the field or court. When I was in Washington, DC, I worked for Jerry Stackhouse of the Washington Wizards and found him to be a great person. I did some photography work for Stackhouse and his family, and they welcomed me in their house - fed me too. I was amazed by how normal he was. But where previous athletes have broken down my preconceptions, Andrew Brackman shattered them for me.

My very first one-on-one experience with Andrew was doing his head shot his sophomore year in a moment he probably doesn’t recall any more. At NC State, we do all the head shots for the winter and spring athletes over a course of two days in late August. Andrew missed the two assigned days to get his head shot for baseball. (I guess he doesn’t break down the ’scattered brain’ stereotype of athletes). So to compensate, we did his head shot the same day we did the wrestling team photo as the lighting equipment necessary would be already be set up. There were a couple wrestlers who also missed their head shot. As I was setting up he walked into the wrestling room where I was alone to have his head shot done. I realized that we did not have the box of baseball gear necessary to do his head shot. The box containing the baseball caps, jerseys and Under Armour shirts were in Bruce Winkworth’s office. So I told Andrew that I would need to get the box first. I left the wrestling practice room and Andrew followed me to Bruce’s office. We spotted the box in Bruce’s office and as I was about to bend down and get it, Andrew said “I’ll get it” and picked it up. A simple act, but it really surprised me. Andrew was also on the basketball team at the time and I guess I was expecting him to want me to do all the hard work. I felt bad about my prejudice about him, but after that day, I changed my opinion of him and respected him a little more. Of course, I thought it would be inconsequential. I expected to never really have any interaction with him and didn’t expect anyone would care about my opinion of him. But he made a fan out of me. If anyone did ask, I would say that I was impressed with him, even in what was a short encounter.

Obviously during the project I got to know Drew fairly well with all the time we spent together. In the process, I found him to be an extremely friendly person with a constant grin on his face. As a bit of a prankster, practical jokes pulled on his team mates were par for the course. So this is an advance warning to the Yankees clubhouse.

I never saw Drew get mad at anyone. When I think back on him I see him constantly smiling, laughing and always upbeat. Half my pictures of him off the mound are him with a smile across his face, almost as wide as he is tall. When he did get mad, it was only at himself. Drew was his worse critic and when he didn’t live up to his high-standards, he would be hard on himself. One vivid memory was when he pitched against Maryland on March 9th. There was an admittedly bad 3rd inning for the Pack, but in the game, which Andrew pitched all nine innings, he struck out nine and walked only one. Maryland scored 5 in the 3rd inning but Andrew remained resolute and strong; never backing down. I think it would have done in most pitchers. Despite his good performance, he was upset with himself that whole night. I joined Drew, his family and a handful of the other baseball players out for dinner that night at a sports bar. We watched the NC State men’s basketball team beat UVA in the ACC championship 2nd round that night. But I remember Drew sitting quietly, absorbed in his thoughts about the game that just ended a few hours ago. It was the only time that I was scared to talk to him.

As I wrote in an earlier blog post, Drew carries himself in an insouciant manner even before pitching. I don’t mean this in the pejorative sense; I mean it complimentary in fact. He just didn’t get noticeably stressed about starting. He didn’t lock himself away and not talk to anyone. He didn’t become a mental case if little things went wrong before pitching. Yet he treated the role of starting pitcher very seriously and came to the game focused and ready for battle. .

As Bruce Winkworth said to me once, “Drew will surprise you”. Sometimes I thought he wouldn’t remember anything I said. But, he surprised me. Once he had a CD of mine that I loaned him to listen to. It was a band called 30 Seconds to Mars that he first introduced me to. I bought the whole CD and left it with him before the UNC game to check out so he could hear songs on the CD he didn’t know about. I never did get the CD back from him, partly because I didn’t make it out to his apartment afterward. Once he left Raleigh, I thought the CD was forever lost, so while in Chicago, I bought another copy at a music store that was going out of business, and selling everything that wasn’t nailed down at discount. A month later, I met Drew his family and a few friends at a restaurant. There Andrew came up to me and pulled the CD out of his pants pocket. I just couldn’t believe he remembered. So Bruce was right, he will surprise you.

Andrew Brackman signing day party

Finally, the guy is just surprisingly humble. Very self-effacing, the only thing that draws attention to him the fact he dwarfs most people at nearly 7 feet in height. He’s not showy at all. His mom invited me to a signing day party they had last week for a Andrew. I couldn’t come because it was in Cincinnati and too far for me to travel. But the guest of honor almost didn’t come either. His mom said he didn’t want a party and was too humble to have one.

It is hard to imagine Andrew being a first round draft pick and a future NY Yankee. Not because he lacks athleticism or skill. No, because this doesn’t happen to your friends, especially those so seemingly normal. Even today, it’s hard for me to really get it through my head that Andrew has signed a multi-million contract with the Yankees. Since when did normal people move into the upper echelons of athletics? I guess it has been happening all the time. But most of us don’t get the opportunity to know an athlete beyond their stat sheet and seeing them on TV. So I’m fortunate to have had the chance to know one before they “made it big”.

With his combination of amazing talent and athleticism, and yet humble nature, he is certainly a sui generis. So I wonder: If a first round MLB pick and future NY Yankee pitcher can be so down to earth and normal, why can’t all the other athletes I’ve met in my life be?

Thanks for everything Andrew.

Pitching Ace: A Portrait of Andrew Brackman and the 2007 Wolfpack Baseball Team

Hard to believe that the Andrew Brackman project has come to an end. About two weeks ago I had the pleasure to have dinner with Andrew and his family. It was bitter-sweet because I knew it marked the end of the project. But it was good to see them and one has to be happy for him and his career. He signed on Wednesday for $4.5M.

I struggled with what to do with all the photos taken during the project and eventually decided to put them in a self-published book. Pitching Ace: A Portrait of Andrew Brackman and the 2007 Wolfpack Baseball Team is a culmination of about four months of photos and around 100 hours worth of work done to sort through, archive and select photos for the book plus the time spent assembling the book. Hard to believe it would take that much time, but I found the end result to be worth it.

The book is 120 pages, hard cover and measures 13×11 inches. Bruce Winkworth, NCSU’s baseball sports information director, was kind enough to lend his editorial assistance.

The book has already been printed in a first edition and was limited to four copies. They were distributed to Coach Elliott Avent, Bruce Winkworth, Andrew Brackman (I think his mom stole his copy) and me. The first edition had a black and white cover and will never be printed again. In it’s place is a second edition which is identical except a color cover. (Update 9/14/07: The spine is now red with white lettering.)

I’m making the book publicly available for sale to those who want a copy. Sorry for the high price but the book costs a lot of money for me to print; there are no economies of scale going on here. I make very little on the books and am not selling them to get rich. I would make more if someone bought a single 8×10 print than this entire book honestly. The book is sold directly through the printer, blurb.com. You can click here to order the book from their site. They will ship the book directly to you.

The book contains photos of the entire team and is supplemented by text brought over from my blog. It provides a great behind-the-scenes look at life of the team. I hope all those who enjoy Wolfpack baseball will treasure this book for years to come.

I have a link to some of my favorite black and white images from the project that you can find here.

NCSU Football Media Guide Front Cover 2007

NCSU Football Media Guide Back Cover 2007

Earlier this year, Annabelle Myers, NCSU associate athletic director for athletic communications, talked with me in her office about the athletic department’s vision for the 2007 media cover. They were inspired by the cover for the DVD to the TV series The Closer and wanted to bring the concept to our cover. The goal was to have Coach O’Brien at the forefront, with his hands planted on a reflective conference room table, and the players behind him. I was excited about their idea. It is always great to have a client that thinks outside of the box and wants to try new ideas.

The photo shoot took place at the Murphy Football Center in the TV studio that has a green screen installed. Wolfpack fans are familiar with this studio as this is where the coach’s weekly show is filmed. The green screen facilitated the process of photoshopping out the background around the players and placing them onto a solid black medium.

I packed every single light and light modifier that I had in my arsenal. The shoot was not overly complex, but I expected it would require a lot of light modification. Indeed it did. We used anywhere between three and four lights utilizing softboxes, grids and snoots.

We photographed Coach O’Brien first. The first challenge was finding a table that was high enough for him to lean on, and had a good reflectivity so that his hands would reflect. Annabelle, Pat Norris (also of sports information), Rob Bradley (my friend who was helping) and I scratched our heads for about 10 minutes trying to find a strategy. We finally settled on the coffee table that appears on the weekly coach’s show as a prop. We raised the table by stacking it on top a couple crates and boxes. It was ingenuity at its best; although coach had to be careful to lean too hard on the table or it would tip over.

Marcus Stone Media Guide

We had to work a couple angles and ask coach to move his hands in different places before we finally found just the right angle to that had the perfect reflection and perspective. Coach was very pleasant to work with and patient as we moved him around literally inch by inch. After we finished with Coach O’Brien, we photographed the six seniors that are pictured on the front. Each player was photographed seperatly because there was not enough room to photograph them as a group in the room. Also, we wanted to light each person slightly differently to the final image would not look flat.

For the back cover, we photographed the remaining seniors including Marcus Stone, pictured on the right. Marcus is smiling because Annabelle was able to get the always stoic Marcus to actually crack a smile.

(Quick note, the back cover is missing one person because we had one player not show up. I photographed him about 3 weeks later, but he did not make the pre-production mock-up that Annabelle sent me. The final printed version obviously has him.)

Congrats to Drew who was drafted in the first round by the NY Yankees in this year’s MLB draft. Check out gopack.com for more information.

I sent him an text message (really instant message on AIM) to congratulate him. I stopped short of calling him a “Damn Yankee”. He is up in Cincinnasty Cincinnati now with his parents.